Since their inception in 2013, Manchester quintet Barbarian Hermit has focused the vast majority of its Sludge grooves on live audiences around its home city and the rest of the UK. After two years of upheaval which has seen one original member return and two leave, debut album Solitude and Savagery (self-released) sees the band set out toward a brave new horizon.Continue reading
The incredible productivity of transatlantic duo Ævangelist – six albums and a host of EPs littering its eight-year existence – is matched only by the nerve-shredding nature of the music. The Blackened Death chaos mirrors the evil and pestilence rife in today’s inhumane, technical age, and this is further reflected in latest album Matricide in the Temple of Omega (I, Voidhanger Records).Continue reading
Even for lovers of the Doom genre such as myself, it’s never a bad thing when a new variant on the strain comes along. Step forward Vouna, a Washington state-based project, whose synth-heavy take on the Funeral sound adds lush, frosted textures to a bleak atmosphere.Continue reading
Born in 2016 from the ashes of Atmospheric Sludgers Sòl, Portland trio Flood Peak have thus far allowed their more black-tinged slime to crawl beneath the canopy. Debut EP Plagued By Sufferers (self-released) is about to change that status, containing the shimmering lights of the former incarnation and uniting that style with a ferocious, darkened power which at times takes the breath away.Continue reading
If you want prolific, look no further than Polish psych fiends Spaceslug. This is their third album in four years, all graced by the greatest sleeve covers since Coheed & Cambria found the Milky Way and a monstrous roar that never gets tired.Continue reading
One of Manchester’s brightest up-and-coming lights opened this autumn evening, the first night of a huge week of metal in the city. Impavidus were as tight as hell, the commonly-used MeloDeath soubriquet seeming very wide of the mark despite Michelle Adamson’s staggering use of harsh and clean vocals and some howling leadplay from Gav Smith.
The first two albums from Church of Ra-affiliated Belgians Oathbreaker were fiery slabs of dark anger which nevertheless possessed hints of invention: gaining the band a reputation further enhanced with an incendiary set at last year’s Damnation festival. Nothing, however, pointed to the emotional might and unbridled creativity of new album Rheia (Deathwish Inc.) Continue reading
The seaside town of Brighton, UK, previously famous for its attractiveness to holidaying Londoners and its apparently sizeable gay population, is at present building a reputation as a haven of devastating Low-end music. Step forward Kalloused whose first foray into recorded output, Damn You Believer (Third I-Rex), begins with the suspense-laden ‘Pt 1’: a weighty tome which possesses a surprising yet subtle line in crunching but emotional guitar.
So, to recap: evil Chicago entity Lord Mantis spawns from three-quarters of Blackened Sludge quartet Indian. In 2014 the band split spectacularly with troubled yet horrifically effective vocalist Charlie Fell: upon which the parent band folds and becomes the new incarnation of the progeny, Indian vocalist Dylan O’Toole assuming the role of the heinous rasp. Moreover, since the recording of new EP Nice Teeth Whore (New Density), guitarist Scott Shellhamer and bassist Will Lindsay have also departed, with Alletta Ergun moving in.
Got all that? The debris from the Fell departure has finally settled and it’s now time to see if the Mantis can silence those who doubt the credibility of the band without him. Initially Nice Teeth Whore seems something of a return to the excellent days of sophomore album Pervertor (Candlelight Records): the slurring, quickened Black boom of ‘SIG Safer’ swelling to a final crescendo and highlighting O’Toole’s hostile bark, spearing the mind yet missing that sense of ‘serial killer’ depravity Fell exudes so effortlessly.
The title track runs at a more familiar and ominous, Doom-laden pace: the sheer violent malevolence of O’Toole’s delivery complementing Bill Bumgardner’s colossal drums; the switch between rumbling riffs, shimmering Blackened passages and some wonderfully emotive yet spiked leadwork utterly compelling. It’s this reined-in brutality, desperately attempting to break free yet unable to escape from the choke-hold, that is the essence of both bands and leaves the listener fraught, nerve-shredded and exhausted in a blissful fashion
Bumgardner’s drums are again to the fore in ‘Semblances’, pummeling their way through a savage, sawing chorus from which screams resonate and slice the skin. It’s the languid, funereal hostility of ‘Final Division’, however, where the heady days of this terrifying outfit truly return: vocals so oppressive as to clog up the throat; a hateful, slow-burning intensity crawling lazily through the gut, leaving hungry leeches in its wake.
The warm, beefy production and undercurrents of howling leads may steal a little menace, but make no mistake: Lord Mantis are back to their punishing best. Let’s now hope that some stability can allow this febrile ferocity to fester…
8.0/10
PAUL QUINN
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The PR notes accompanying Decathexis (Third-I Rex), the second album from Cagliari firebrands VIII, advise comparisons with Extreme experimentalists Deathspell Omega and Manes. The reality, however, is a progressive aural violence full of invention.
Opener ‘Symptom’s early exchanges see a stripped down, Blackened underpin, quirky in its structure and graced by WLKN’s snarled growl, suddenly tempered by maudlin drops which lend themselves to a Shoegaze feel. That Manes comparison manifests itself with a Jazzy sax, which introduces a dream-like sequence: a piano-led ambience; a street walk followed by a nightmarish descent through rapid atonal chords, Freeform pace changes and hostile growls, with those ivories beginning the road to a sample-laden coda in hair-raising fashion.
The early stages of the ensuing ‘Diagnosis’ beautifully blend an emotional, atmospheric Doom with more of that wistful saxophone and the kind of Deathly, downward spirals perfected by the likes of Pyrrhon. A meander through eerie gentleness is followed by a rampant, horrific explosion, the throat morphing from growl to Blackened rasp in a terrifying escalation of anger. This is the depiction of a war zone yet, replete with a subtle piano centrepiece, the apocalyptic, heartbreaking aftermath of battle is gloriously displayed also.
There’s a Blues-Punk edge to the bludgeon of closer ‘Prognosis’ which lends a more traditional edge but the experimentation is still evident: the sparing, neurotic riffs given a tremolo effect; the atmospheric blast of classical acoustic; the brief, gradual drop once again full of melancholy and portent. It’s WLKN’s voice which again provides the savagery, especially in the tolling, Avant-garde atonality of the second movement: his screams and whispers demonical in accompanying the hydraulic Industria and Marco Porcu’s staggering stickwork.
This constant movement through disparate fundamentals can lead to ‘Prognosis’ occasionally feeling a touch difficult to engage with, its cosmic yet serene finale an ineffectual end to the urgency of the previous 45 minutes. The whole is nevertheless an absorbing tour de force, its manic nature running in perfect tandem with a moving ambience to incite all manner of emotion. By no means an easy listen, Decathexis is nevertheless a hugely rewarding journey.
8.0/10.0
PAUL QUINN