On Submerus (Sentient Ruin Laboratories/Lower Your Head for digital), his fifth full-length from Hell, the sludge project leans into a nasty wall of downtuned rumbling. This wall of rumble is set behind the tortured screams of someone who’s more intent on losing their mind than adhering to the bounds of songwriting. It feels more like someone who create art from a dense heavy sound, that is impressive due to it’s sheer heaviness, but in consuming an album the goal would be for the music to hook you in rather than a test of endurance as to what you ears can stand at high volumes, though not to kink shame anyone who is into sonic masochism.
How many times have you worked up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and just had an overdriven chug in your head? If it has ever happened, chances are it occurs less than some song you happened to hear in line at the grocery store, and now it’s stuck in your head. This is not to say that heavy music isn’t catchy; it can be and should be, as random Deicide songs are often stuck on repeat in my head, though not everything has to be a suicidal sacrifice. Sonic weight has its appeal. This album does hold some touches of black metal on this album When the “songs” accelerate, the instruments being assaulted here are falling into a soul sucking chasm in the abyss, which is an appealing enough sonic picture to paint.
“Gravis” finds things going in a more dismal direction. The vocals are screamed from a more deliberate place of suffering. Though more atmosphere surfaces to break things up from the relentless pounding.. The track is haunted by a raw, almost noisy element to what is going on.. This is what pushes this album into being sludge, as the rawness is more of a punk thing; it’s angry about the torment being inflicted rather than romanticizing it. As doom mourns the loss of a life less tormented. You get more of a breather from the instrumental “Factum,” which sounds more like Low screwing around at soundcheck.
There is a more mournful melody floating under the distortion on “Mortem”. It’s at the three-and-a-half minutes of the last track that it all comes together as an actual song. The bass line walks out this slow feedback-slathered rumble.
This album was created with a very specific audience in mind, one who might have listened to death metal in middle school but has since become a more cultured individual with a taste for early Swans and Throbbing Gristle once they reached drinking age. It is heavy as hell, but I am not sure the more abstract presentation of riffs as a concept rather than fingers on the fret board will win over die-hard headbangers.. How many albums do you find references to both Deicide, Swans, Throbbing Gristle, and even Low, if they are more metaphoric allusions? That highlights the unique nature of the aural torture chamber being displayed in this art gallery of the mind.
Buy the album here:
https://sentientruin.bandcamp.com/album/submersus
7 / 10
WIL CIFER
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