Space Bong - "Deadwood to Worms" (Album Review)

By: Mike Wilcox

Album Type: Full Length

Date Released: 20/10/2015

Label: Art As Catharsis |

FalsexIdol

This is a craft of pure tar and it is of the purest quality.  The dirge stretches further and onward and you feel your essence stretched along with it.  You’re wading through molasses by the end of it.   “High Priests and Petty Thieves” takes you through an EYEHATEGOD spirited eleven and a half minute trudge with extra on the stoner vibe.  Space Bong are onto something in addition to being on something and I want to journey with them, wherever they might be headed.  With “Deadwood to Worms” it’s easy to understand why.

“Deadwood to Worms” DD//LP track listing:

1. Slow Spring

2. Burnt by Time

3. Deadwood to Worms

4. High Priests and Petty Thieves

5. If I'm in Luck I Might Get Picked Up (Betty Davis cover)

The Review:

I’ve got to get my hands on whatever it is the Australian metal scene is smoking.  For real.  “Deadwood to Worms”, Space Bong’s long awaited follow up to 2009’s “The Death of Utopia,” has a thicker consistency than the resin inside of the actual space bong that they must be using.  This is modern Stoner/Sludge at its finest.  The Blackened edge is a nice touch as well.  Friend’s with Perth’s Drowning Horse, a previous review of mine, it’s easy to see why these folks all get along.  As I’m typing this up I am awaiting test results for pneumonia.  I’m half convinced that this album gave it to me.

In terms of its stylistic approach, “Deadwood to Worms” is by in large a Stoner Metal effort.  The influences that I hear as a listener are vast, however.  Within the first two tracks the savvy listener can hear a range from Electric Wizard all the way to Testament via “Demonic” (1997)…”Deadwood to Worms”, the album’s title track, leaves you nostalgic for Bach’s “Toccata and Fugue in Dm”.  This is a craft of pure tar and it is of the purest quality.  The dirge stretches further and onward and you feel your essence stretched along with it.  You’re wading through molasses by the end of it.   “High Priests and Petty Thieves” takes you through an EYEHATEGOD spirited eleven and a half minute trudge with extra on the stoner vibe.  I can see listening that this cut from the same cloth as recent finds, Garganjua.  It gets you lit.  I dig.

As the album closes out with “I Said if I’m in Luck I Just Might Get Picked Up” and your now tar covered mind processes the album you just subjected yourself to, you feel a sense of renewal, for music and self.  Space Bong’s “Deadwood to Worms” doesn’t feel like another garage project, another passing group who happen to jam really well.  There’s warmth to their product that doesn’t cast feeling of ‘another stoner metal band’.  These guys have a solid and fresh vibe for sure.  Space Bong are onto something in addition to being on something and I want to journey with them, wherever they might be headed.  With “Deadwood to Worms” it’s easy to understand why.

“Deadwood to Worms” is available here

Band info: facebook | Bandcamp