A tasty slice of rhythmic, headbanging Sludge, this groovy, nicely gnarly EP finds Hollow Leg in fine fettle, smoking hot and leaving many others in their wake – leaving them in the dust, you could say.
Opening single “Poison Bite” nails everything down in determined and distinct fashion, Scott Angelacos’ strong, wailing, shamanic vocals helping to set the scene, and then “Sick Days” gallops away at a quicker tempo, enroute to a sprightly lead geetar solo, with talk of “the end of days” and “no retribution”. Dust in the wind, dudes, dust in the wind …
The darkly titled “Funeral Storms” is suitably heavy and doomy, Angelacos on excellent, shouty form, before “Another Day Dying” shuffles to center stage, full of chopping riffs and battering drums, with a very firm bottom end. Everything seems to be angsty and apocalyptic as this experienced Florida four-piece – with four LPs and another EP since 2010 – continue to show their quality and considerable class.
The last and longest song, “Holy Water”, at 5:46, is entrancing and enchanting as the groove snakes around, ahead and away, building from a nicely atmospheric, Pink Floyd-esque beginning. Again, the lyrics don’t aim for the upbeat: “Everything lost, everything gone, everything washed away … Quicksand and Holy Water …”
So don’t look to Dust (Self-Released) to put a dumb smile on your face. But then, if you’re a parched desert traveler seeking epic grooves, it may well leave your cracked lips grinning after all.
In approach, intent and quality, this is geographically close to the recently re-released Stoner landmark … It’s Ugly Or Nothing, by The Awesome Machine, and that is intended as relatively high praise. If Dust doesn’t quite match that particular collection’s good, old-fashioned fuzziness, that’s surely a conscious and assured decision, i.e. the buzzy fuzz “knob” is set exactly where the Hollow men want it to be. Everything else about Hollow Leg is so assured, so rightly-in-its-place.
“Holy Water” is probably the pick of this EP, with “Poison Bite” another stand-out, and no misfires.
Buy the album here:
https://hollowleg.bandcamp.com/album/dust
8 / 10
CALLUM REID