TRACK PREMIERE: NIGHTFUCKER deliver aural evisceration on "Death Beset"

By: Eeli Helin

We at THE SLUDGELORD are extremely delighted to present to you the first single from the upcoming debut album by NIGHTFUCKER. These Canadian sludge/doom rooted organ twisters are led by none other than Dominic Finnbow, formerly known from the Lovecraftian UK sludge titans that was known as Moss. After relocating over the Atlantic, Finnbow summoned a new set of mire dwelling lunatics around him and forged the demon that is with us today. NIGHTFUCKER have meticulously explored the deepest and most atrocious sewers of humanity over the last decade, yet the band has released only one demo as a self-produced cassette, titled "Foul Omens" prior to crafting their debut full-length, now getting it's release through Sentient Ruin and Rope or Guillotine.

While the odiously depicted creation process took a long time, all the suffering, anguish and hate is audible. The first single track, "Death Beset" clocks in at over eleven minutes, and encapsulates the album well in all it's eulogised misery. The atmosphere is very unforgiving, hypnotising loops are broken ever so often with more driving, beating rhythms that'll make you gasp and twitch. If you're close with the lead figures past works, you'll notice familiar resonances here and there, but it goes without saying that NIGHTFUCKER  is a being of it's own. That being is a disgusting, bruised entity with a crust of filth obtained from the aforementioned expeditions to the deepest ends of this planets cesspits. 

Their self titled debut will be released on July 12th and is available to preorder via Sentient Ruin (USA/ROW) HERE and Rope or Guillotine (Europe) HERE Give "Death Beset" a listen below with the volume maxed out and watch your speaker die. 

ALBUM REVIEW: Leechfeast, "Neon Crosses"

By: Stephen Murray

Album Type: Full Length

Date Released: 30/03/2018

Label: Dry Cough Records |

Rope And Guillotine

Taken altogether, the vacillation between violence and misery is compelling

“Neon Crosses” DD//LP track listing:

1). Sacrosanct

2). Halogen

3). Tar

4). Razor Nest

The Review:

It’s not that I would nail myself to the masochist mast, but I have to admit there is something ritualistically cleansing about laying down in a dark room, depriving all senses except hearing, and shattering that peaceful seclusion with a high volume deluge of grisly, bone-biting aural violence. Despite the horrific grime one is subjected to, the effect is one of paradoxical cleanliness and peace. But for the ritual to work it must be pure; nothing watered down into a thin, homeopathic tincture; it must be something viscous and foul-tasting that lets you know that you’ve been medicined, a spiking that lets you know you’ve been spoken to. If you need this treatment as much as I do, then “Neon Crosses” is your draught.

This is Leechfeast’s first full-length for five years (their second overall), and their first release since the split with New Zealand's now defunct grime lords Meth Drinker back in 2015. Perhaps significantly, this is the first recording since Hans Wubs took over the sticks from Marko Šajn in an otherwise remarkably consistent line-up since their nascence in 2010.

As the title suggests, it cuts an urban path. For Slovenia’s Leechfeast, the children of the night are not wolves, but other predators skulking between the streetlights. They represent the mould growing in the gutters, the weeds pushing through the concrete, blackened foil in the alleys and the screams of victims slapping back off wet brick, steel and glass.

At first harken, I quickly understand why comparisons have been drawn between “Neon Crosses” and the excoriating sounds of Cough and Moss, but it is no carbon copy. Instead, the band manage to steer their sound safely across the ever busier shipping lanes of modern doom, deftly avoiding collision with the other lumbering tankers which seem to be riding in each other’s wakes.

An example of this subtle divergence comes on the second track, ‘Halogen’. Its linchpin riff is like someone heartlessly slinging on a string of Reggie Dixon numbers when you're too goofed to intervene, leaving you to be waltzed through to some dreadful other dimension.

Highlight song, ‘Razor Nest,’ well positioned at the end of the record, opens with gloomily melodic, reverb-washed singing, drawing parallels with 40 Watt Sun, except with all the hope for tomorrow extinguished. Then despair gives way to anger once more and the vocals lash out again, the guitars moving from minors to chromatics, the whole peppered with samples from what sounds to be space age American public information films. The effect is that of a broken emergency broadcast system piping messages exhorting calm which echo through the empty streets of a post-neutron bombed world.

At no point does “Neon Crosses” feel protracted, each of the eight to ten minute tracks is extremely well judged; the bars allotted to the changing riffs and motifs is perfect and the sound achieved in the studio and in post-production is crisp, capturing some of that high-end fizz that gives character to otherwise bass rich guitar tone and slow skin pummeling.

The record invokes that horrid yet splendid feeling of your flesh being torn from you in long, misshapen strips, and then dresses the wounds in melancholic, chant-like singing and single picked guitar lines more apt to surrendering to the darkness than exalting it. Taken altogether, the vacillation between violence and misery is compelling. Would definitely recommend for your next isolation tank session

“Neon Crosses” is available here

Band info: bandcamp || facebook

Tombstones - ‘Vargariis’ (Album Review)

By: Richard Maw

Album Type: Full Length

Date Released: 04/12/2015

Label: Soulseller Records

“Barren Fields” sounds like doom, it relentlessly rumbles forth with unstoppable perpetual motion. There is more light and shade with Tombstones, but they are no less weighty, the compositions are all stand alone pieces of music, but all with a vibe running through them and a sound that identifies them.  Simply put, this is a modern doom record and those of us who enjoyed the their last record, Conan, Electric Wizard, Ramesses et al will find much to enjoy here. A fine album, then.

‘Vargariis’ CD//DD//LP track listing:

1. Barren Fields
2. And When The Heathen Strive, Vargariis Rise
3. Oceans Of Consciousness
4. The Dark High
5. Underneath The Earth
6. Pyre Of The Cloth

The Review:

Having heard “Red Skies and Dead Eyes” back in 2013 and enjoyed it a lot, I had high hopes for this Scan-Doom outfits' latest release. From the off, it does not disappoint. “Barren Fields” sounds like doom, all right, but of the Conan rather than Sabbath variety. It relentlessly rumbles forth with unstoppable perpetual motion. There is more light and shade with Tombstones, perhaps, than with their UK equivalent, but they are no less weighty. “And When The Heathen Strive, Vargariis Rise” acts as a quasi title track, a little quicker at base tempo but it is no less downtuned or doom filled. The vocals, when they arrive, are positively anguished (more akin to Moss, or something, initially). Good to hear the high hat foot pedal getting used too- not something you hear a lot of in doom.

“Oceans of Consciousness” starts with a rolling blast beat (think black metal, not death metal), which is both surprising and a great change of approach for the band. Things slow down to a grooving and low slung riff, of course, but again the band prove that tempos and dynamics are one of their strengths as the blast returns...

Naturally, as the track lengths are all uniformly around the nine or ten minute mark, it would be hard to argue that there are songs per se. This is doom, after all, and as a genre generally it will go for repetition and groove over hooks most of the time. That is not to take away from the compositions here- they are all stand alone pieces of music, but all with a vibe running through them and a sound that identifies them. “The Dark High” gives an almost trippy vibe; loose and open as opposed to some of the more claustrophobic tracks elsewhere and it breaks things up effectively. It gets heavier as it goes, of course and ends with a suitably feral thrashing of the bands' collective instruments. “Underneath The Earth” is a pleasingly downcast listen, all stops and starts and riffs.

“Pyre of the Cloth” finishes the record with another nine minutes plus of percussive battery and doom laden riffage. Simply put, this is a modern doom record and those of us who enjoyed the their last record, Conan, Electric Wizard, Ramesses et al will find much to enjoy here. A fine album, then.

‘Vargariis’ is available here

FFO: Conan, Electric Wizard, Ramesses, Slabdragger

Band info: bandcamp | facebook

Moss - Carmilla (Marcilla)/Spectral Visions EP (Review)

Album Type: EP

Date Released: 31^st October 2014

Label: Stone Tapes

Carmilla (Marcilla)/Spectral Visions DD/LP track listing:

1.Carmilla (Marcilla) (09:51)

2. Spectral Visions (08:20)

Bio

Since they emerged from Hampshire's catacombs in late 2000, MOSS have tirelessly dragged intimidating amplification and metaphysical malignance down a murky and overgrown path to oblivion. Whilst their sound has morphed slowly from lengthy and devastating exorcisms of psychic horror to a comparatively traditional form of sermonising, the last decade and a half has only seen them draw closer to a motherlode of ceremonial ambience and otherworldly dread. Fuelled by classic doom metal and British horror yet in thrall to no-one but their own wayward co-ordinates, these three seers have created a formidable collection of audial documents that bear testimony to an unflinching fascination with the ghastly and esoteric.

However, Hallowe'en 2014 sees the triuvirate encroaching on territory anew. Having released an album on Aurora Borealis and two more on Rise Above alongside untold EPs, live recordings and split releases, they now embark on their first release for their own imprint, Stone Tapes, having chosen not to renew their association with Rise Above after the release of 2013's 'Horrible Night'. A 10” double A-side EP limited to 500 copies, it sees the band in splendid isolation, expanding on the gruesome Grand Guignol atmosphere of their last opus in suitably monomaniacal fashion, and deploying grimly earthen guitar tone, death-knell battery and stentorian oratory to conjure otherworldly malice from beyond with deadly fortitude.

The Band:

Olly Pearson | vocals

Dom Finbow | guitars

Chris Chantler | drums

Review:

Preparing for a Halloween release, Moss continue their ever-more melodic ascent from beneath the grave into classic doom territory with their new 10" record. The vocals continue their veering away from the earlier more extreme moments, resting in a slightly-musical spoken/sung tone that, in truth, is the one thing separating this from being an exceptional pair of tracks. Without any great range, and without the sub-tonal rasp of the past, they mostly fall a little flat for me. Thankfully that guitar and bass sound is MASSIVE and at times fully redeems vocal shortcomings. Both tracks fit the familiar Moss pattern of intensely dragging, glacial riffs that slow the breathing, that pull you down into the plodding stomp. Spaced out, drug-fueled funerealism, steeped in an occult swamp that holds you in like quicksand. I found myself being constantly reattached to the tune despite the vocals. Side 1, entitled Carmilla/Marcilla is like a more direct funeral doom. Despite slowly drawn-out lyrics of being forever dead it holds an active, vampiric edge.

It certainly isn't complaining about the death or doing the dying, dig? Unlike so much slouching downtrodden doom, this gives a better account to an almost predatory feel. Neither song is too complex or overtly sinister sounding, but they make great work of simple amplifier-worshipping relentless grooves that provide the pressure, the motive for the words. The back side, Spectral Visions doesn't dissapoint on that note as it immediately begins with a looping gutturally hypnotic riff that opens up after a few minutes into a droning slowdown. A lead break around 5 minutes or so tries to claw your eyes out with its scraping shrieking dissonance as Olly Pearson yells "can you feel it taking over your mind?" The weight pushes you down, and the wait closes in on you.

Being a huge fan of their first three albums, I can't avoid disappointment in the loss of the extreme vocals but they grew on me after a few listens, and the music stands up well enough. I think quite a few fans of traditional doom could probably use this as an entry point for the subterranean end of the genre, being significantly more accessible than Sub Templum and Chthonic Rites, while still remaining extremely heavy and slow.

Words by: James Harris

You can stream and preorder Carmilla (Marcilla) from here.

For more information:

http://mossdoom.bandcamp.com/album/carmilla-marcilla-spectral-visions

https://www.facebook.com/mossdoomcult

https://twitter.com/MOSSDOOM