Queens of the Sludge Age

Mares Of Thrace - The Moulting
2010, Arctodus Records

Stripped down and violent, detuned and hauntingly beautiful, melodic yet chokingly dense and constantly bristling with rythmical intricacies and passionate, raging guitar work, The Moulting is an intriguing album. I found it rather by chance, surfing the shallow depths of these interwebs, and I'm really glad I did. Being a duo, Mares Of Thrace consists of only a drummer and a guitarist, and it blows my mind that two people can create both such an intense, almost frenzied sludgy atmosphere and such sonic complexities and yet manage to bring to it such devastatingly beautiful textures. Their music reminds me alot of other very stripped-down-to-the-bone kind of bands, who also utilize alot of winding, sometimes dissonant or melancholy melodies and rythmical complexities in their writing; bands like fellow Canadians Nomeansno, Jesus Lizard and of course Black Sabbath (Ward's jazzy drumming, the somber, melancholy melodies of both Geezer and Tony Iommi have always had a swampy kind of blues-feel to me).

There is an impressive amount of detail to be found in the music as well, be it the often deceptively technical drumming of Stef MacKichan, the brief but constant melodic colorings thrown into Therese Lanz's often densely heavy riffs or the intermingling flurries of electronics thrown into the mix. There's enough metal here to warrant a 'metal' label on the Mares' music, but there's more to it than that, of course. Having done stints in loads of other musical constellations - Exit Strategy, Kilbourne and KEN Mode among them - these ladies know the ins and outs of the heavier, extreme styles of music like the backs of their hands. This means there are huge doses of other influences than just mere metal at work here. There's an obvious jazzy, winding noiserock (I fucking hate that word) feel to much of their music, but there are also monumental, tribal influences going on here, along the lines of Isis or Neurosis, where dense, melodic riffs, driven by awesome, primal, warlike rythms shatter everything in their path. And ontop of everything else there's also a visceral snarling punk attitude coating everything, adding yet another layer of ferocity to the music. Therese's emotionally charged vocals, sometimes sung in a clean voice, more often screamed in a deep, resonant, growl (how the hell does she do that?) are hugely impressive and tend to work rather as an added layer of instrumentation than a mere conveyor for platitudinal inanities. It's not always easy to decipher the lyrics, and though I'm convinced they're just as well-written as the music, it doesn't really bother me not knowing what she's singing. The music as a whole is so impressive and emotional the lyrical content becomes less of a concern to me. I'm really looking forward to the Mares' upcoming album, The Pilgrimage, where they hopefully have expanded on the musical ideas and themes on The Moulting. Watch the live clips below if you need any further convincing.

Serving time in the middle of nowhere

Seven Sisters Of Sleep - ST
2011, A389

Everybody were raving about Seven Sisters Of Sleep when this album came out. People everywhere seemed almost taken aback by it and the reviews were glowing. Me, I just couldn't get into it. For some reason it just didn't do it for me. Maybe it was the longish name, maybe the generally slow plodding pace or the sludgy esthetic of their music in general, or perhaps I'm just retarded sometimes. It isn't that the music of SSoS is in any way difficult or overly challenging, I just didn't, for whatever reason, click with the tunes on the album, they just drifted past me without sinking any hooks in. I recently went back and sat through the album again and all of a sudden I got it. How I couldn't before is beyond me. It's almost impossible to describe SSoS's music without using the words Black and Sabbath so I'm not even gonna try. Suffice it to say, this is some amazingly well-crafted, heavy dirty metal with nods to sludge-masters Eyehategod as well as the previously mentioned precursors of all that is heavy in metal. It's not all slow all the time - in fact there are more than a few moments of ferocious hardcore velocity - but the pervading sense is that of desperation and dread and crumbling landscapes frozen in time. The much needed sense of urgency and release in the faster-paced parts serve as a momentum breaker that infuses a definite sense of dynamic into the album. I keep thinking of Eyehategod, circa Dopesick when I hear this but with a punkier attitude and less suicidally inclined. The vocal style on display here would fit perfectly on any d-beat charged hardcore album and this works really well within the context of these songs. Everything reeks of desperation and rage, from the vocals to the constricting, dense atmosphere of the music itself, and while all the songs are short and never even get the chance to be long-winded, they're also never leave you with a sense of being unfinished. In fact, the best song on the album, Swamp, isn't even two minutes long. The band apparently features members from The Arm And Sword Of A Bastard God (whom I have both heard of and heard - got a tape somewhere) and Tafkata (whom I have never heard of). Grade A stuff.

On Earth as it is in Hell

Yeah I know, it's been a while. I won't make excuses, I won't pretend you really give a shit if this blog exists or not and I won't waste anymore of your or my time with this preamble. New shit I've listened to these past few days reviewed below.


Sulaco - Build and Burn
2011, Handshake Inc

Sulaco has been around since 2003 and even though I've seen the name around and heard of them I'd never made an effort to actually track anything of theirs down. It turns out I'm a bit of a fuckhead. Because I should've. Sulaco oozes energy from every available pore and orifice. There is a Converge-meets-Trap-Them sense of unstoppable urgency going on here that's impossible to not get hooked on. There are semi-mathy prog parts, lots of insane almost b-horror movie like melodies and a huge dose of Brutal Truth grindness/weirdness, both rythm-wise and in the riffing. The more I listen to this album the more I get an almost caleidoscopic feeling off of Build and Burn. I mean, shit there's a huge death metal presence here, loads of dirty punk as well as an almost, well, dare I say it...emo-esque sense of melody. There are heavy as fuck sludgy, almost doomy, parts and there are pure blast beat sections that weave in and out of it all, often driven by those mathy odd horror movie melodies. I am so incredibly pleased to have finally gotten my shit togehther to listen to Sulaco because it's most definately worth it.


Young Hunter - Children of a Hungry World
2011,

Young Hunter, hailing from Tucson, Arizona, sounds like they just stepped out of a time warp straight from the late sixties and they spin huge, epic doom yarns mixed with drugged out psychedelic rock and stoner elements in a way that completely blew me away. There are even black metal-ish segments thrown in for good measure, with blast beats and all! Amazing. This is living-in-a-van-smoking-dope-kinda-music, it's I-wanna-move-to-the-desert-and-do-peyote-music, this is Charlie-Manson-is-a-friend-of-mine-and-he's-groovy-kinda-music. With a modern twist that somehow eludes my attempts to pin down. Imagine mixing Jefferson Airplane, Black Sabbath and Kyuss and letting it all pass through the digestive system of both Boyd Rice and Hunter S. Thompson. That's what Young Hunter sounds like. Kinda. Their stuff is available through bandcamp. Go there and listen for yourself.


UFO Gestapo - Grandemmisair
2011, Streaks Records

Grandemissair is the latest offering from vaguely proggy, heavy doom dealers UFO Gestapo. There's a huge Sabbath presence in these songs but there's also a dirty, ADD-kind of punk vibe going on that's a bit Black Flagg-y if you get my drift. This isn't only all-out sludge in the EyeHateGod sense of the word, but there are lots of loose structures here, lots of weird, noisy parts and lots of spaced out jams. But there are also brief, wicked, blasts of unrestrained hardcore fury, that break up the plodding monotony that's inevitable in this kind of music. There is a strong sense of 80's hardcore to some of these songs, reminding me at times of bands like Flipper and early The Melvins. I know next to nothing about the band except that they're apparently from France and that this is their second full length release so far. Really good stuff.