Ten Ton Slug - Colossal Oppressor (Self Released) [Matt Bladen]
It's been a long time coming, a few previous releases, a trail of slime right across their native Ireland, the UK and continental Europe, with a show at Maryland Doom festival coming this year, but it culminates with Colossal Oppressor the debut album from Connemara's Ten Ton Slug.
It's been a long time coming, a few previous releases, a trail of slime right across their native Ireland, the UK and continental Europe, with a show at Maryland Doom festival coming this year, but it culminates with Colossal Oppressor the debut album from Connemara's Ten Ton Slug.
Conjure up in your mind the sound a ten ton slug would make, I think you'll find it's pretty close to the cavernous, monstrous crawl that this band deliver, if Electric Wizard eased off on the weed and jammed some Eyehategod, Ten Ton Slug and Magore The Unkind could be the result. Similarities as well to tour mates Conan, Bongzilla and CoC, they look towards the slower style of battering death metal too with Bolt Thrower, Obituary and Autopsy the obvious ones.
Having seen them at Bloodstock Festival I can attest to how heavy they are and they are very much able to capture that feeling of your organs shifting a foot to the left with Colossal Oppressor. Ancient Ways alongside Mindless And Blind are the kind of music you want from this band, Sean Sullivan's snarling guitar riffs are linked with Pavol Rosa's burbling bass to steer the riff worship.
Having seen them at Bloodstock Festival I can attest to how heavy they are and they are very much able to capture that feeling of your organs shifting a foot to the left with Colossal Oppressor. Ancient Ways alongside Mindless And Blind are the kind of music you want from this band, Sean Sullivan's snarling guitar riffs are linked with Pavol Rosa's burbling bass to steer the riff worship.
It's not just sludge though on Brutus, they have some grunting death, Karl Willetts of Memoriam/Bolt Thrower adding his brutal and legendary vocals to join Rónán Ó hÁrrachtáin for an unholy duet. The slug has been truly let loose and it is looking to flatten everything that stands in front of it! 8/10
Ba’al – Soft Eyes (Ripcord Records) [Paul Scoble]
Sheffield based five-piece Ba’al have been making music since 2016. The band, made up of Nick Gosling on guitars, Chris Mole also on guitars, Luke Ruttter on drums, Richard Spencer on bass, violin and viola and JP Stamps on vocals. In the 8 years the band have been together they have released two other EP's 2017’s In Gallows By Mass and Reverence in 2019, and one album released in 2020 and called Ellipsism.
Soft Eyes is a three track EP, the first material the band have released with their current line-up, it shows another step along a path that started with Atmospheric Black Metal and has seen the band move towards Post Black Metal and Post metal.
The EP is split into three long songs with a total length of twenty seven minutes. Opening song Ornamental Doll begins with Field Recordings before we are dropped into mid-paced Post Black Metal with harsh vocals, the vocals are harsh for most of the EP with clean vocals used very sparingly, the music is heavy but has some light to how the riffs are written. The middle of the song is soft, gentle and Post Rock in style, this is then slowly built back to driving and purposeful Post Metal, the song comes to an end with soft guitar and samples.
Next comes Yearn To Burn Bright, which has a minimal opening with bass, drums and whispered vocals. The song then drops into a section that feels tumultuous with harsh vocals, and very heavy Sludgy riffs with a nice bit of dissonance for good measure. The track then goes into a Blast Beat with a tremolo picked riff and feels very Black Metal. Yearn To Burn Bright then switches feel completely for a section that feels expansive with keyboard parts, this then has layers added to it until it feels absolutely massive, and then the song ends.
Final track Bamber Bridge has a long slow build up into Post Rock riffs. This then goes into a Post Black Metal section that is driving and purposeful. The song then takes a lighter feel with some post Metal that is very melodic, this then builds in intensity to a tight riff with a great melody lead. The song then drifts off into Post Rock with soft and gentle guitars, for an ending that feels like a resolution.
Soft Eyes is a great EP. It bodes well for the new material that this fresh line-up is going to produce. The material is complex, changing a lot over the course of the twenty seven minutes, but the band handle all of the transitions very well, and the complex nature of the music never feels forced or unnatural. Get ready for the next album, if this EP is anything to go by, its going to be great! 8/10
The EP is split into three long songs with a total length of twenty seven minutes. Opening song Ornamental Doll begins with Field Recordings before we are dropped into mid-paced Post Black Metal with harsh vocals, the vocals are harsh for most of the EP with clean vocals used very sparingly, the music is heavy but has some light to how the riffs are written. The middle of the song is soft, gentle and Post Rock in style, this is then slowly built back to driving and purposeful Post Metal, the song comes to an end with soft guitar and samples.
Next comes Yearn To Burn Bright, which has a minimal opening with bass, drums and whispered vocals. The song then drops into a section that feels tumultuous with harsh vocals, and very heavy Sludgy riffs with a nice bit of dissonance for good measure. The track then goes into a Blast Beat with a tremolo picked riff and feels very Black Metal. Yearn To Burn Bright then switches feel completely for a section that feels expansive with keyboard parts, this then has layers added to it until it feels absolutely massive, and then the song ends.
Final track Bamber Bridge has a long slow build up into Post Rock riffs. This then goes into a Post Black Metal section that is driving and purposeful. The song then takes a lighter feel with some post Metal that is very melodic, this then builds in intensity to a tight riff with a great melody lead. The song then drifts off into Post Rock with soft and gentle guitars, for an ending that feels like a resolution.
Soft Eyes is a great EP. It bodes well for the new material that this fresh line-up is going to produce. The material is complex, changing a lot over the course of the twenty seven minutes, but the band handle all of the transitions very well, and the complex nature of the music never feels forced or unnatural. Get ready for the next album, if this EP is anything to go by, its going to be great! 8/10
Bismarck – Vourukasha (Dark Essence Records) [Paul Scoble]
Norway, and Bergen is mainly known musically for Black Metal, but the Scandinavian country has produced some very good Doom bands over the years. One such band is Bismarck, who have been making huge and heavy noises in their hometown of Bergen since 2015.
In the time they have been together Bismarck have made two albums before Vourukasha; Their debut, Urkraft in 2018, and the follow up, Oneiromancer in 2020. The band is made up of Anders Vaage on bass, Tore Lyngstad on drums, Eirik Goksøyr on guitars, Trygve Svarstad also on guitars and Torstein Nørstegård Tveiten on vocals.
The album kicks off with the track Sky Father, which crashes in with mid-paced and very aggressive Doom. The riffs are monolithically heavy and dense, with huge, bellowing Vocals, this is very heavy and very belligerent, it has a definite Conan feel to it, although the vocals are possibly even more combative than Conan. The song slows down for a very nasty crawl, before a sludgy section comes in to kick us all in the teeth. The song then goes into a Drone section with whispering until the big heavy riff comes back to take the song to its end.
Next we get Echoes which is again mid-paced and very heavy Doom, this time with a tempo that feels relentless and the riff has a bit of added dissonance. The song then goes into very minimal and stripped-down section before the song builds itself back together to, once again, huge and heavy Doom.
Kigal is an interesting track; it opens with percussion with an eastern feel to it, before bass and clean Guitar come in with some clean and very gentle chanting, the track builds with added vocals until the song fades out. A very distinctive track that stands out. After Kigal comes The Tree Of All Seeds, which is a short, clean guitar instrumental.
Title track Vourukasha, is another super heavy Doom track with a feeling of turmoil. The chorus is slower and heavier than the verse. Near the end the song slows to a crawl before dropping into a minimal Drone, the huge, heavy and slow riff returns to take the song to its end.
Final track Ocean Dweller has a very long and slow drone intro that takes 4 minutes to get to very slow and very heavy Doom with a keyboard drone added to it. This track is all about super slow and incredibly heavy, massive chords crash against each other in a monolithically heavy way. The song then drifts back into a drone for a couple of minutes of fade out.
Vourukasha is a very good, and almost insanely heavy album. It does two or three things very well, but only those two or three things. If you like very heavy Doom and Drone then you will love this, but people after more complexity or variety will have to look elsewhere. The song Kigal really helps give this a bit of much needed alternative to only slow and heavy, without it this album would feel pretty one dimensional.
The other issue I have with Vourukasha is the length, at 35 minutes it is a little on the short side, and with long droning intros and outros the amount of music just doesn’t feel enough. An extra six-minute song would help make the album feel more satisfying. In many ways that isn’t a criticism, I was enjoying the music, and wanted it to keep going. 7/10
The Watchers - Nyctophilia (Ripple Music) [Matt Bladen]
Formed in 2016, Bay Area band The Watchers were snapped up by Ripple very early in their career. The California based label, releasing two EP’s and a full length from them so far. They’ve played countless high profile gigs in that time and now after they are poised to release their second full length album Nyctophilia, which is being a fan of the dark for those that don’t speak latin.
The Watchers play brooding, horror influenced classic metal which meets groove and thrash, making them an amalgamation of several California bands, from the Bay Area riffs and speed of Metallica, the L.A muscle of Black Label Society or the SoCal modernity of Avenged Sevenfold, the latter in the vocals which I’m not sold on. In the lower reaches they’re ok but when the record opens with Twilight I Am The Dark, sung almost totally at the top of the range it’s grating.
Musically too I find The Watchers a bit too safe, they’re playing their strengths but they are deep rooted in the California metal scene and sound as if they have been birthed by it. Now that said they do take a trip to Seattle on Taker and the title track sounds like Zakk playing Never Say Die, it is produced by Max Norman who has twiddled knobs for Ozzy and MegaDave, but mostly The Watchers are a sum of their parts, they feature members from Spiral Arms, White Witch Canyon, Black Gates, Systematic, and Vicious Rumors; a classic metal band with stoner band tendencies. 6/10
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