Back with another bag of riffs, Guernsey blackened
sludge Doom trio Byzanthian
Neckbeard return on November 1st with their third album “Minaton”. Today at THE SLUDGELORD, we’re excited to debut
a new track, which you can check out below. Byzanthian Neckbeard may be three miscreants from the foggy island of Guernsey, but
they know their way around a bone-shattering song, so press play, turn your
stereo up loud and watch your speakers die
Friday, 25 October 2019
Thursday, 24 October 2019
PREMIERE: Chained to the Bottom of the Ocean’s next chapter of aural depravity “Tell Me What You See Vanishing and I Will Tell You Who You Are”
Despite
knowing very little about the band and precious little info being
available, with the release of their debut full length “Decay and Other
Hopes Against Progress” in 2017, Springfield, Massachusetts, Chained to the Bottom of the Ocean’s delivered a record so utterly fucking
devastating, the band literally became one of our favourite bands at THE SLUDGELORD
Their
music is plain wretched and today we bring you exclusively their next chapter
of aural depravity “Tell Me What You See Vanishing and I Will Tell You
Who You Are” in full below. The record is released tomorrow
and preorders are being taken here
Tuesday, 22 October 2019
ALBUM REVIEW: Unfurl, "The Waking Void"
By: Eeli Helin
Album Type:
Full Length
Date Released: 20/09/2019
Label:
Independent
”The Waking Void” CD//CS//DD track listing:
1.
Ancestral Spirit
2.
Ritual of Fire
3.
Null
4.
Post-Modern Prometheus
5.
Void
6.
Withering Aeons
7.
Black Widow Hourglass
8.
Lazarus Reflex
9.
Begrudging Lucidity
10.
Guest of the Cavern/Mind Altar
11.
Blue Rose
The Review:
Unfurl
are one of those bands who are flying under the radar way too fluently while
they'd deserve all the attention possible from bigger and smaller medias. Their
debut full-length "The Waking Void" was released
on September 20th and the buzz started only afterwards, given that it's
reasonably increasing constantly. Struggling to get press is pretty much a
standard today, but it's bands like this that makes all that seem very unfair;
after all, "The Waking Void" is amongst the better albums of the year,
and one hell of a debut that came from nowhere.
Having
enthusiastic music nerds as friends is a benefit, that proved to be worthwhile
with this release as well. After being directed to this album by the #lord
himself, it proficiently stole my undivided attention for days. "The
Waking Void" is a voluble mix of blackened and partly noisy death
metal with shoegazey and mathgrind leanings. One of the most interesting
creations on the record are the shorter, noisy and mostly electronic tracks
scattered throughout, offering brief pauses and moments of ease amidst the
intense battering. While the inclusion of such seemingly minuscule tracks might
feel out of place at first, they end up being very integral for the narrative
of the entire album.
Apart
from the interludes, the heart and soul of "The Waking Void"
obviously lies in the main tracks. The beating starts on the second track "Ritual of Fire", showcasing
the high compositional level and underlying tones quite well right from the
beginning. "Post-Modern Prometheus"
carries you away into the noisier, black metal-esque end of the spectrum and
holds within one of the most breathtaking breakdown of this decade. The
production atmosphere is like a tightening grip, but doesn't turn suffocating
as the organic feel is cherished with precision and thought. A short
intermission leads the listener to "Withering
Aeons", grooving like a motherfucker all the way through to what is
perhaps the greatest surprise on the album.
"Black Widow Hourglass"
is a moment of pure mourning, expressed through clean vocals and guitars,
textured with ambient washes and floaty drum beats. Flowing straight into "Lazarus Reflex", this pair
represents the band in their best, weaving a plethora of wildly different
flavours into each other seamlessly. It's soon obvious that with these tracks, Unfurl
kick in a whole new gear. While the first half had it's own strengths, the
latter is where the band relies solely on their personal expression, finding a
whole new kind of coherency and momentum to themselves.
Towards
the end, the tracks progress into more diverse and fascinating ones, and by the
time the final piece "Blue Rose"
is over, you'll find yourself wondering why Unfurl aren't on every single
metal enthusiast's or music journalist's lips, why an album of this caliber was
released independently, why you haven't heard about them before. As futile as
those questions are by now, they still bear a meaning in today's music
industry, underlining the fact that without heaps of green and direct
connections to certain persons of interest, a lot of amazing music gets buried
underneath the rubble. We can only hope that this kind of material finds its
own audience, preferably sooner than later.
”The
Waking Void” is avialble HERE
Tuesday, 15 October 2019
6 NEW BANDS: THE SLUDGELORD's "666 Pack Review" (September 2019)
By: Nikos Mixas
2). MUNT “Towards Extinction” (Melbourne, Australia) Rating: 666!
Ambient without fashion…without trend
Band info: Wardomized || Munt || The Beginning and the end || Cross Dog || Alienator
Welcome
to THE SLUDGELORD’s September 666 Pack
Review. Summer is OVER, so dust off your
black hoodie collection and stow away your favorite pair of camo cargo shorts. Winter is coming and so is the onslaught of
review submission to THE
SLUDGEORD. If you’re new to
this, each and every month we handpick 6 review submissions and critique them
by only using 6 words, then we rate them on a scale from 1 to 666! Check
out our metal fashion themed rating scale below:
1 –
This is as exciting as…your bootleg Pantera shirt.
2 –
Wearing a kilt at a metal festival and this submission go hand in hand.
3 –
Anything camouflaged is pretty standard in metal fashion, this band can relate
for sure.
4 – Spikes, chains and leather are
always a cool look…in fact, you guys are pretty cool too. Four it is.
5 –
The hottest thing in metal fashion has to be the battle vest/jacket trend right
now. You guys should definitely make
some patches.
666 –
Truth be told, being original and talented isn’t fashionable at all. THE SLUDGELORD doesn’t give a fuck how
you look, only how you sound. You guys
killed it, congratulations!
Caveat: Even though the 666 Pack Review is meant to
offer humorous critique, there are no safe spaces here and your gripes will
only make you sound like a bellyacher. THE SLUDGELORD is a picky listener…and
doesn’t care what you think of his opinions….
1).
Wardomized “A Heated Exchange”
(Belfast, U.K.) Rating: 5
Napalm
Death influence abundantly clear…aaaargh!!!
2). MUNT “Towards Extinction” (Melbourne, Australia) Rating: 666!
Fucking
hate on the barbie mate!
3
). The Beginning and the End “Ourboros” (London, U.K.) Rating: 3
). The Beginning and the End “Ourboros” (London, U.K.) Rating: 3
was
down until the vocals…
4).
Cross Dog “Hollow” (Petersborough,
Ontario, Canada) Rating: 3
Again,
solid music…but the vocals…
5).
Alienatör “Pariahs”
(Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada) Rating: 4
Not
the most original, but groovy!
6).
Oktas “Oktas” (Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania, U.S.A.) Rating: 5
Ambient without fashion…without trend
Band info: Wardomized || Munt || The Beginning and the end || Cross Dog || Alienator
Saturday, 12 October 2019
ALBUM REVIEW: Car Bomb, "Mordial"
By: Eeli Helin
Album Type: Full Length
Date Released:
27/09/19
Label: Independent |
Holy
Roar Records
”Mordial”
CD//DD//LP track listing:
1.
Start
2.
Fade Out
3.
Vague Skies
4.
Scattered Sprites
5.
Dissect Yourself
6.
Xoxoy
7.
Hela
8.
Blackened Battery
9.
Mordial
10.
Eyecide
11.
Antipatterns
12.
Naked Fuse
The Review:
If
you are one of those people who went their way to declare the new Car Bomb album "Mordial"
as the album of the year as soon as it was announced before hearing a single
note, and want to stick to that notion without considering another side to it,
I'd advice you not to read this review any further. Said album was released on
September 27th to a wide acclaim, and the previous statements flew very broadly
and high. Even though I got the album a month in advance, scribing a review
took a while since after the first listen, I honestly didn't remember or even
want to replay it. Given my expectations were gigantic, as their previous album
"Meta" is simply one of the greatest records ever written,
I still didn't even consider the possibility to be put off completely the way I
was. Not to be overwhelmingly negative, after many, many listens, I can say
"Mordial" is a good album, but that's about it.
Car Bomb's output has
refined and evolved over the years, apparently hitting their peak with the
anterior album, this newest one falling somewhere in the middle. "Mordial"
is the kind of record that explores what has fallen through the cracks on the
previous albums, and it thrives in just that. There's plenty of material that
momentarily brings out the old giggling fanboy in me, but in its entirety, the
album feels bland and flat. I mentioned that after the first listen I didn't
feel the need to get back to it, and that is what underlines the opinion I have
about it for the time being.
The
customary, brain-melting and comprehension-meddling rhythms and weird effects
dominate the overall scapes of "Mordial" exactly in a way most
people were expecting them to do. While tracks like "Fade Out",
"Vague Skies" and "Antipatterns" push the
boundaries of what can be deemed rhythmical, at the same time they lack
adhesiveness. It might sound stupid to say the twists and turns are hard to
follow when the band in question is what it is, but few steadier and more
digestable parts could've made a huge difference. You know, stuff that you can
nod to. The integral chaotic and nonsensical aspect to the band is present
constantly, but also feels too controlled this time around. Granted, the band's
sound is deliberately mechanical, but that doesn't mean that the human touch
should be left out completely. The atmosphere on "Mordial"
is suffocated and more unnatural than before, which on it's part surely affects
the taste it leaves behind it.
Not
so surprisingly, the best moments on the album are those you didn't expect at
all. Such things would be the clean guitars in the title track, the black
metal-ish tremolo picking/ double kick section in "Eyecide", and the random
Metallica influences on "Blackened
Battery" for example. "Dissect
Yourself", "Xoxoy",
and "Naked Fuse" express the most "basic" side of
the band, if you can call it that, but also work wonderfully each time. I'm
aware of the contradictions I'm making here, but that's just to make my point
clearer. There's better and worse sides to everything, but sadly the latter
seems to stick with me when talking about this album. I’m also pretty surprised
how ”Meshuggah”
they went this time. Surely that band has had a huge effect on what Car Bomb is doing, but it’s a bit
sad the lines can be drawn so directly to that one particular source of
influence this time.
There's
also a lot of recycled riffs and rhythms, which also goes to give that
"between the cracks" feel to "Mordial". I don't
doubt that people enjoy this album, but it feels that its place is somewhere in
the middle and between everything. Opinions are prone to change, and I don't
feel the need to state things definitively as I might be on the other end of
the spectrum a year from now, but currently I feel that Car Bomb didn't reach the standard
they ever so eloquently set for themselves with their past doings.
”Mordial”
is available HERE
Friday, 4 October 2019
TRACK PREMIERE: Gospel of the Witches, "Womb of The World"
KARYN CRISIS’ GOSPEL OF THE WITCHES is the brainchild of two visionaries: Karyn Crisis
(ex-Crisis)
and Davide Tiso (Ephel
Duath, Howling Sycamore). Their debut “Salem’s Wounds” was
released by Century Media
Records with worldwide critical acclaim in 2015, and now it's time
for a brand new album. Titled “Covenant” and
featuring Fabian Vestod (Skinlab)
on drums, it offers 12 songs of the finest Occult Metal -- from evil heaviness
to ambient passages invoking very ancient concepts and vibrations of the realm
of the Goddesses and those who celebrate their magic on earth. Today at THE SLUDGELORD we’re
exclusively streaming a new track entitled "Womb of
the World" which you can stream below
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