Drowse have put a decidedly electronic spin on the titanic first Slipknot hit song from their 1999 selt-titled debut album, “Wait And Bleed.” The song appears on the forthcoming nu metal comp from The Flenser, Send the Pain Below, attribute to NuMetal and 1990s nostalgia. The comp is only available to on vinyl to subscribers of their Series Three membership club. Previously released covers include tracks by Vile Creature, Chat Pile, and Wreck & Reference. Check it out now!
Ghost Cult continues our “End of Year Guest Post Extravaganza” with a slew of posts from bands, industry, PR pros, and more! We’ll be sharing lists, memories, and other shenanigans from our favorite bands, partners, music industry peers, and other folks we respect across the globe. In this edition, Kyle Bates a.k.a. Drowse shares his Top Albums List for 2020 with our readers. Drowse dropped a new album in 2019, Light Mirror, out now from The Flenser label.
I love sloths. Slow, easy living, tree-hugging, cute in a strange kind of way…That’s not this Portland, Oregon, trio though – bristling with a fulminating, ireful energy, Sloths’ sludgy brutality is tempered by streams of post-hardcore lead guitar twisting through distortion, whilst diseased growls and Nate Sonenfield‘s Jeremy Bolm-like harrowing screams express previously unspeakable agonies. Indeed ‘Void’, the second offering of the three-track EP Twenty Years (Independent), is Touche Amore from the swamps, with downturned riffs waking a lazy, pensive build; Kyle Bates‘ agonised post leadwork and Sonenfield’s screams overtaken by a jagged, rumbling crescendo, the cavernous riffs causing mountains to shake.
The at times frenetic drumming and tortured roars driving the unhinged new-wave of closer ‘Passing’ are again moderated by those moody, chiming leads; the accompanying leaden force and delicious time changes the final urgency of an intriguing sound. Three tracks is not easy to judge the overall potential of a band but the signs here are really promising with the sounds and feelings of pain, hatred and unbearable sadness portrayed bitterly and beautifully.
These guys might not be as cuddly as the real thing, but they’re bloody impressive. The EP is free through bandcamp, but Twenty Years is well worth some of your hard-earned.
8.0/10
PAUL QUINN