Charming Timur - A Brief Moment of Existence review

Year : 2014
Genre : Experimental, Metal
Label : Independent
Origin : Finland
Official site : > - here - <

This review starts out with a brief, introductory quotation snippet taken from the official BandCamp site of the reviewed contribution.

"Charming Timur is a one man musical planecrash not limiting to any genres in particular, but mostly revolving around Modern Metal, Nu Metal and various genres with the word "Post-" in front. Located in Helsinki."

The name of the game indeed is massively guitar centered silence massacre, coming to you focused and fine tuned along the rather brave-, nevertheless rigorously controlled variety. While the given musical space is molested with scientific grit, the production values reflect a constant awareness of how to prevent bleedthrough between the sonic elements, so each and every component is displayed in their respective anatomy in fully exhibited fashion.

Charming Timur is correct in saying how his personal taste of metal encompasses multiple fascinating extremities of it, since, interestingly enough, metal - as a main genre - itself incorporates a myriad variants of musical rhetorics and modal characteristics. As such, while the album starts out with a gritty/hefty mid-tempo opening that surely gets you in the mood to get through a door without ever touching a door knob, the second track is an immediate-, both risky and ballsy tour of trepidation into such a relentless brand of heavily sludge infected black metal that brings to mind immediate and rather pleasant Lord Mantis connotations. As you subject yourself to the full value experience, Charming Timur's definite and eloquently channeled black metal fascination is rendered rampant/evident in front of your curious ears and pineal gland. Read more to know about this album.

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Neurosis - Honor Found In Decay review

Year : 2012
Genre : Sludge Metal
Label : Neurot Records
Origin : United States
Rating : 6.0 / 10

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Music and the other types of entertainment are constituting the all-tolerant media evil should be expressed on when the insatiable urge to express evil IS present, because no one has to get harmed in THIS process. I don't condone the harming of any living things - highly evil mind parasites that are fulfilling their functions in a mind  idiotic enough to invent, invite AND serve them : included - but I condone anything in art, saved for the evidently tasteless. Severed toddler heads hanging from erect Baphomet dick is a starting point for tasteless. Unfortufuckinglutely, as a miserable music critic, I already have had the lifting experience of being soulcrushed by quite a few top tier sludge formations in recent days in order to harness high quality amusement, and THIS particular record from renowned sludge ensemble Neurosis simply isn't evil and isn't uncompromisingly disillusioned enough to weigh in as a timeless recommendation, NOT on this particular music review site Noise Shaft. Though I'm not competent enough to offer an opinion on the overall contents of the lyrics, through the music itself, a relentlessly self-fixated demeanor - not hard of a mistake to commit as a human - seems to be observable throughout the effort, which so adores the results of examining itself that it reaches the point on which it emerges content with any expression of its inner findings, and these deliberate anti-charms do not really seem to be sufficiently intricate constructs of classic existentialist fear and the general absence of love-evident to be worth showing for almost an entire hour. Because the 60 minutes disc has about 10 minutes of badass music, too.

Existing as a human is only frightening when you fail to accept the limitations that are inherent to the human condition, - tits will turn you on, for example - and, the very instant you submit to the worship of your fear of your own incapacities, you will suck legendarily as a(n) (f)artist. Granted, a sludge metal band worth listening to really should be fronted by Cthulhu, nevertheless, the style has great potential to express the helplessness of existence, but, more importantly, to offer reflections on the possible shapes of doubts and fears surrounding this particular - human - form of it. The massive caveat I have with this Neurosis - a good thing that the sentence continues - LP is that it not only is relentlessly fixated on shapes and thoughts of fear that have been addressed a million times before through the capacities of music, but, shitassfuck, it seeks to offer clumsy images of hope - cheapest human commodity - at places I don't want to see the REMNANTS of disgusting hope at - AT all. Don't assuage me on a sludge metal disc, please. Crush my soul or get away from me.

Only an idiot - or Chuck Norris - would want to be the protagonist of a nightmare, but it is expectable from a successful sludge metal release to declare 111% indifference towards the human condition, and what I hear on this release is simply music made by people armed with a terrible mood, and, the somewhat seemingly trite variant of that, too. You can have that without having to sit around listening for an hour while having the bad mood of others poured on you. Bad mood simply isn't enough. Never ask the neurotic how he is doing, because he will tell it. Read more if you feel like it.

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Down IV Part I - The Purple EP review

Year : 2012
Genre : Doom Metal, Sludge
Label : Independent
Origin : United States
Rating : 9.0 / 10

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Down IV Part I - The Purple EP is the first of four extended plays  the band plans to release on consensus throughout the - logically - coming years. If you are not yet familiar with this band, then know that it is a Southern-State ensemble with quite a few illustrious members in its rankings. Fronter Philip Anselmo surely rings a bell or two as casual co-creator of the groove metal genre, and how about Crowbar fronter Kirk Windstein, who now handles the guitar strings of doom with much hoped for efficiency? The most relevant characteristic of the latest to date Down package that flatters the receptors, is a splendid and sublime spiritual similarity to - hold on to your horses before you vomit into the cleavage of the lady - ZZ Top, but these ZZ Top dudes have gone zombie on you, and now they are coming in to rip your heart out. As a start.

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High On Fire - De Vermis Mysteriis review

Year : 2012
Genre : Sludge / Stoner Rock
Label : E1 Music
Origin : United States
Rating : 7.5 / 10

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I have been introduced to this group anticipating stoner rock, but the data on the disc sounds to me as sludge metal with stoner elements and some rabid leanings here and there towards full scale thrash warfare. This particular album is - kind of - a concept album, and the free encyclopedia, Wikipedia does a tremendous job addressing the circumstances why it is such. The following introductory quotation is taken from this Wikipedia page.

"De Vermis Mysteriis is the sixth album by metal band High on Fire. According to frontman Matt Pike The album’s title (translation: “The Mysteries of the Worm,”) is a nod to a fictional grimoire conceived by the late, great Psycho author Robert Bloch in 1935 and later incorporated into horror master H.P. Lovecraft’s renowned Cthulu Mythos. “It’s a concept record, a little bit,” Pike offers. “I got this idea about Jesus Christ and the Immaculate Conception: What if Jesus had a twin who died at birth to give Jesus his life? And then what if the twin became a time traveler right then? He lives his life only going forward until he finds this scroll from an ancient Chinese alchemist who derived a serum out of the black lotus—which is actually in Robert E. Howard’s ‘Conan’ stories—and then he starts traveling back in time. He can see the past through his ancestors’ eyes, but his enemies can kill him if they kill the ancestor that he’s seeing through at the time. Basically, he keeps waking up in other people’s bodies at bad times. It’s kinda like that old TV show Quantum Leap. Kurt actually pointed that out to me after I told him the idea. But whatever—time travel is a killer concept.”

Guys, let's talk about the music.

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Cruciamentum - Engulfed in Desolation EP review

Year : 2011
Genre : Death Metal with Thrash Groove and Sludge tendencies
Label : Nuclear Winter Records
Origin : United Kingdom
Rating : 8.8 / 10

Cruciamentum's Engulfed in Desolation EP sounds and acts as the perfect aural narrative to wander around on the joycrusher scenery reigning supreme on the efficient cover art. It always is truly nice to witness quality analogue artwork as opposed to the shameless, z-grade Photoshop exploitation not sufficiently rare to recent day production trends. Check the pseudo-worthless cover (f)art of this toy metal release, for a gruesome example of unacceptably non-inspired visual terror reigning evident, rampant, triumphant on the unsuspecting mind of the good willed beholder.

Luckily, Cruciamentum's Engulfed in Desolation EP is not only out there to sacrifice your mom, (using your possessed body to conduct the ritual, naturally) but it also shows an uncompromising consistency in its effortless, sumptuous agenda to weigh in as an utterly humorless and - logically enough - (un)dead-serious declaration, and this commitment yields 24 minutes of anti-purified sonic intensity that registers to your receptors as more meaningful and relevant audio data than that obtainable from the largely risk free variant of routine death metal, armed with a fake satisfaction on top of the shallow act of relying on the essential components of the genre, but not even WANTING to do something evidently significant with the abused entities. Still with me? Fucking pervert. Read on to find our more about this eloquent death metal release, that which doubtless exhibits increased capacity to imbue its own genre with the eminent/lethal potentiality of a fresh breath of crimson hellfire. 


Cruciamentum's charisma, in my opinion, is rooted in the conscious decision of choosing caveman death metal as the focal field of operation, but not declining the respective charms of various other subgenres of metal, such as the hereby exhibited tendency to thrash, to groove, and, to spout sludge, even. Track number 2, called "Through Gates of Morpheus Realms" is a good example of how versatile and entertaining things can get here, as the band is ready and able to soak your ears into a myriad variation of tasteful metal stimuli, while remaining faithful at heart to the epitome of cavemanish sonic warfare I have just been telling you about. In this regard, the release is more humorless and more vile than this splendid delivery of similar character, yet, it also is a much more colorful offering than what the "older" school of death seems to relentlessly perpetuate to this very moment. As such, I admire the work for what it seeks to do, namely, to dress death into more audible colors than you most often see/hear it in.

The album's premiere shortcomings are some exhausted grooves here and there, embarrassingly flattering uninspired power chord bitchslappings, teamed up with the band's relative gravitation towards the bottommost note of the ensemble, that which is a related motor-obsession so easy to commit that it is a shame to, as well. Yes, if you are any sort of a (highly extreme) guitarist, then you feel a secretive urge that invites you to abuse the deepestestestestest note on your instrument, because that note resonates so freely and you look so badass while riding it, but, in my opinion you also want to-, you also need to cultivate a discretion in yourself that prevents a higher self from abusing consensus with the deepest note all the time whenever it looks for a new musical thought. A good example of deepest note abuse is witnessable on this release if you listen to the beginning of track 4 after the ending of track 3. You have pretty good chances of doing so naturally, too. Take heed and bear witness how these segments occupy the same sonic domain, and this always is a very mundane audio percept to be subjected to. Dudettes. Never start the consecutive song in the same key as the previous was in, I'm begging you shamelessly.

Rating : 8.8 / 10

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Woburn House - Sleep Summer Storm review

Year : 2011
Genre : Atmoshperic Sludge
Label : Zeitgeister Music
Origin : Germany
Rating : 9.0 / 10

Woburn House plays a rather rare type of sludge music, and what makes this sludge special, is that it does not seek to intimidate its listener. This German group delivers caressing lightweight sonic data, coming to you through touches hidden in a glove hot as the vicinity of hellfire, and the intent never is to wear you down or to fix you into a brick wall.

Woburn House's music cunningly and willingly reigns in the position of being elegantly lost in space, yet always remains ready to give a ping of life upon request. The album's agenda is firm and original, while its sound is capable to summon - in my opinion - a truly special mood that reeks an alternate universe Type O Negative of the early '80s with Peter Steele contemplating in ambient terms. Read on to find out more about this.


The peculiar character of the music on this release is not something you can easily come across. In fact, it is safe to say that Sleep Summer Storm comes to you with a sound that has all the chance in the world to hit you as rather original, free and unmannered, and, as something you did not hear before. Sludge, and its closely related extreme buttbudy, funeral doom are subgenres that seem to utilize the method of musical intimidation without restrain : the explosion of the tuned-below-hell guitar and the crawling drums are sonic entities you are familiar with while under sludge-siege, or, if you find your awareness amidst the tidal anti-torsion fields of funeral doom. Booooosh! In other words : sludge, and funeral doom are intimidating forms of music, and what makes THIS particular release unique, in my opinion, is the fact that it is capable to summon a super-similar vibe with tender methods and instruments, while rejecting intimidation.

The songs herein are deceitful images, as is a woman who comes close to you, only to make you realize that her face, which seems so pretty from the distance, is 1000 years old. The fabrics of the tracks are not too "busy" at all, there always is plenty of room for modest, but proper variation, mainly administered by simplistic, yet efficient arpeggiated harmonies and random sonic entities that find relevant function in their respective environments. The delivery remains tender in nature, armed with its lethal kiss even when it puts its grouchier face on.

The vocal contribution sounds to me as a conscious fanboy tribute to Peter Steele, as the method the related data is expressed through is quite similar to the vocal style of the Type O Negative fronter, in my opinion. It must be mentioned though that the singer lacks the

(n)e(c)rotic deep

of Peter Steele, and, fortunately, does not even try to go for THAT pitch. He instead delivers along the similar mood register, but, on HIS natural frequency.

The Type O Negative correlation is something that the whole album baths and finds beautiful sonic pleasure in, but not with an intent to rip the mood off. Good luck ripping off Type O Negative properly by the way, as Peter Steele had - and I sure hope still has, in his favorite form of existence - an exceptional sense for brutal-fragile harmonic hooks that pull a checkmate on the awareness right away, and this methodology evidently is one that the creators of this LP are greatly enjoying from Mr. Steele, too. I have a hunch that this record might work pretty well with a variety of situations and moods, and the only viable test to the pudding fails to elude me, too. This LP easily is one of the most special releases of 2011, and you definitely should check it out.

Rating : 9.0 / 10

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Self Inflicted - Ten Years of Punishment

Year : 2011
Genre : Southern Sludge, Groove Metal
Label : Independent
Origin : United States
Rating : 9.0 / 10

Self-Inflicted is larger than life, over the top Texan sludge mayhem all administered in the spirit of mid-tempo Pantera. There is only one name to the game on this 16 tons release, and that, not surprisingly, is the mid-tempo groove with such a pronounced rumble as an industrial iron-disc cutter. Ten Years of Punishment won't relent delivering the powerful mid tempo and will exhibit skills on how to project lights on the beast without the leash, finding the exact emotional territories Pantera sounds to draw its aggressive riffs and sonic architectures from. The riffcraft is especially fat and mean on this baby, a good example I'm listening to right now is the track called "Fat Bag of Hate", - stellar title, too! - with a main riff that has all its elements "slithered off" compared to the regions they seem to belong to. Inventiveness and authenticity are primer characteristics, and this is not the direst of strikes you need to endure during an incarnation. Read on to find out more about this spiky, hungry, angry-ass crocodile.


The band Crowbar also comes to mind when similarities between this and its probable influences seek identification. Imagine the tightest blend possible between Pantera and Crowbar, and you will have a solid impression of where these bad men are coming from.

Sure, it is not hard to get carried away and be overly enthusiastic if you are hooked on a particular piece and/or character of music, - this is the damn point, actually - but, regarding this release I truly fail to worry all too much about these fortunate leanings, as I dare say that this by far is the most authentic, most unalloyed, properly faithful and properly in-your-face open bare southern sludge I have heard since the originators. It does not seek to "add" anything new-, spicy, "little something"-grade obtrusive fancy camelshit to the crocodile sludge you crave in the first place.

The compositions truly are intact and reign well focused-, playful and exigent all the way, the band throws in some superb instrumental work from time to time, and these are never of such pronounced presence as to even endanger the relentless cultivation of the ubiquitous sludge which reigns as the primer content on this robust release. I particularly like the lyrics, too, at least the elements I can make out without a textbook. "Unending truuuuth, you will be miii-iiine, no need to doubt, or question whyyyy." These are sexy and relevant lyrics, especially when they are delivered with the power of the sludge, and not on an epicness-craver ethos like sword wielder !PAUA! metal. Last track on the release sounds to be a hidden track of some sort, and this is about sporting big balls. It intentionally is over the top and anti-serious, and remains great fun as hidden track, in my opinion.

The vocal contribution of the lead singer dudette demands mentioning yet. I have never heard such an approach as he comes along from so far, as this man, for a much welcomed change, does not seek to imitate the timber of the Philip Anselmo like I do in the song Supreme Sacrifice - check for the line : "it made me believe" - instead, the fronter of Self Inflicted delivers in a register that sounds to be an unusual blend between Anselmo's Tazmanian Devil scream and a death metal growl. Pretty sick. Check out the 1:20 mark in track number 2 called "Die". The dude here sings : "we all diiiiie." And the way he sings this, does not leave all that much place to further inquiries, either.

- Hello OH!, Voodoo Mistress. I'm afraid to die. Why do I have this fear of death?

- Because you invite that fear.

Rating : 9.0 / 10

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My Dying Bride - The Barghest O' Whitby review

Year : 2011
Genre : Sludge
Label : Peaceville
Origin : United Kingdom
Rating : 8.0 / 10

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My Dying Bride is here to mangle down both your cautious and your comfortable concepts of oh!, so real reality with sludge-rampant unlimited, and, also take heed and bear witness to the superb cover-art that is summing up the horrifying vibe this release seeks to communicate along. For a sake of the moment and the metaphor, imagine how you would feel if to encounter this fucking demonic beast of a living being under this terribly killing moon, and, once you have the vibe, then the best you could and should do, is to hop on this spin and give the middle finger to your expectations while at that. This is acceptable as a plan, but you and I both know that secretly we both anticipate a traditional vibe of sludge, and deeply traditional sludge it is indeed, with down-tuned, - oh really. - tormented instruments seeking to address and spout myriad form of myriad miseries.

There is a quite convincingly sick and sLick sludge record called Guilty by a band called Indian, and this release is quite peaceful, compared to the constant living-through of death - wow! - the Guilty record shows interest in. For the most part. Luckily enough, and, for what I personally like quite enthusiastically about this release, this EP has no desire to serve out any ONE particular spiritual craving of yours. If you are here to shed a tear, you will have ample chances to do so, but, don't be surprised if this EP picks your crying spirit up and kicks its ass to hell and back. The album contains a single, monumental track weighing in at 27:04, and this amount of time gives it all the opportunities in the whole wide world to do with you whatever it wants to. As such : read on to find out how this track is going to waste you.


The EP starts out with one minute of atmospheric ambient, and, after 60 seconds, when you would start to whine like a little bitch about how you not signed up for an atmospheric experience of atmospheric graveyard wind and whatnot, the Lurking Sludge, as if it would be aware of your intent to start to whine, emerges in front of you and puts a ball of mud into your open mouth, (as a start) which is a humbling experience for sure.

The first 6 minutes of the album is a peaceful - in sludge terms, that is - introductory sequence with restrained-, but properly present and soulful singing - not on the LaBrie comfort me, please? register, thank God & Co. - and quite efficient-, also quite eerie violin playing. Do not be afraid : being primordially eerie is NOT an intent of this release, fortufuckinglutely. As hinted already, its primordial intent is to waste you, and it knows that the eerie factor wears out super quickly until a shapeshifter or a banshee moves in to rip out your heart.

From 6:30, a relentless, monumental rumble emerges as Ultimate Abomination Cthulhu would be on the drums with his buttbuddy Yog Sothoth on the bass and their favorite "gimp" Abdul Alhazred with a guitar and the mic as fronter. Erich Zahn on the violin. Hell, yes! My all-time favorite sludge line-up to be honest, and I'm pretty sure that it is yours, too. The singing, while this rumbling operational mode is engaged, takes the character of the narrative-, calm melodic style Peter Steele likes to utilize. Even better : the singer does not seek to imitate Peter Steele's Demigodian Deeps.

The intensity quickly changes its form back to more freely positioned sludge-splashing. A nice riff shows its pretty, but sad face around in an elegant loop, with tamely tormented, but, fortunately, still dignified and likable singing. This verse structure is colored by a short guitar solo, then, an even more relevant, inventively and deceivingly evil riff comes in to park its hideous foot on the remnants of your favorite hopes, hahaha. This structure reaches an interlude with warm, clean guitars fading in then out, giving place for not too stunning, sorrowful solo guitar molestation with howling wind in the background. In my opinion, this introductory sequence of this sub-sequence from 15:00, sounds like the guitarist is out looking for a riff that is on the run from him. A second solo guitar comes in after a while to lead a helping harmonic walk stick. By the time the singer joins in, the guitars indeed are riding on an efficient, restrained, kind of elegantly shy and humble build. From 19:30, the band starts to have the Yob going on : this here is the vibe Your Angry God Who Finds Exquisite Pleasure Smithing Thee is riding on : the singing here becomes spiritually tormented AND authentic at that, while the guitars are finding the sonic places in the fabric of mere music that cause anti-comfort on purpose. And they do not even go for the tritone, A.K.A. the Note of the Devil. Here is a song with a keen fixation on the tritone.

With great satisfaction I behold, that, from the 22:00 mark, My Dying Bride breaks through a door - a fortunate turn of events that the sentence does not end here - the Yob dudes did not really took interest in in their latest release of similar character. At the end section of this 27 minute epic, My Dying Bride brings you sludge-intensity that relentlessly sucks into itself the spirit of death metal, finding a place later on to introduce evil sacrificial drumming that Satan himself probably would give the Approved! on. No, he did not object. No tam and bass drum in the house remains in safety, every single one of them receives full capacity engagement, and the resultant sonic experience is absolutely magical. On the darker spectrum of things, of course. This tribal-, sacrificial megavibe fills the track out proper via the end sequence, and only an atmospheric outro is left to shake a hand with - make sure you get it back - before this elegant soulcrusher EP completes the first spin you deserve. It also is worth mentioning that the release is capable to produce a relentlessly monumental and precisely sculpted sonic presence without effected toy-wizardry, and this right here is the trademark of an output that demands your immediate attention. A DAMNED decent sludge contribution.

Rating : 8.0 / 10

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Glorior Belli - The Great Southern Darkness review

Year : 2011
Genre : Black Metal / Doom / Sludge hybrid
Label : Metal Blade Records
Origin : France
Rating : 8.0 / 10

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Glorior Belli's latest opens a voodoo portal on you that transfers your sorry ass to the immediate vicinity of an extremely irritated and 3 meters long crocodile in Naouleens, - pronunciation : New Orleans - so the plan of this spin is none less than to consort the exquisitely massive and monumentally lazy nature of sludge music with the restlessness of especially unforgiving black metal.

The Great Southern Darkness - try to find the very sloppily hidden tribute to The Great Southern Trendkill in the title - comes to you with a core that declares this delivery as a black metal album at heart, yet the LP's highly grim character packs the aspiration to claim the southern vibes via a good amount of elegantly researched methods that reek the fat promise of good old impending doom. Read on to find out more about these elements, or be voodooed proper, biatch.


The compositions on this record are both solid and flamboyant, and all primer components of them - black metal, dainty doom and bloated sludge - are presented in an eloquent, well varied fashion. None of the respective methods of the ingredients get abused at constant top-efficiency to harass the epitome of instant effect. In other words, it must be pointed out that this album, wisely enough, does not seek to serve out your anticipations by blast beating your misery on the altars of instant southern sludge, it instead is focused to give a kind of doom-tinted black metal, that which gets constantly assuaged by a much more calmer - but still mean - stroll along the southern sludge vibes.

The closest the album comes to-, and fulfills your initial anticipations you are likely to cultivate, is the third track, called They Call Me Black Devil. This song gives you a superb rendition of southern sludge having an explicit affair with specter-black metal, and the next track that follows this one up, sounds extremely strong with its unalloyed misery spilled all over the place in the style of a more sorrowful kind of doom, that which though still has the will to move on. Oh, and the fact that the track's first segment has nothing southern about it, is an embarrassment to complain about.

One beneficial key factor of Glorior Belli's latest declaration is its capacity to surprise you without end while the spin lasts. Once you find yourself more and more accustomed to any central moods the album is fond of revealing, the more closer you are to a dramatic change in the fabric of things. These changes never trade variation in for less efficiency, and an intact build that has sober capacity to flatter and consort traditional black metal / impending doom and massive sludge, indeed is established and decently delivered. The last 20 seconds of the album is especially rabid compared to the character of the release. Why did I just say that? Because I just have heard it.

All in all, The Great Southern Darkness delivers ruthlessly, despite any qualms a culturesnob position may give birth to. If you have enjoyed this release, you may also find luscious pleasure in a death / doom hybrid, scrutinized herein. As for The Great Southern Darkness, the naked intent to consort black with thick sludge and slim doom, results in stable, mean success with razor sharp crocodile teeth, and it seeks to rip out a piece of you. As a start.

Rating : 8.0 / 10

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Mastodon - The Hunter review

Year : 2011
Genre : Blues Rock / Sludge
Label : Reprise / Warner Bros
Origin : United States
Rating : 7.5 / 10

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Mastodon's freshest LP to date has its fair share of moments of rabid beauty, and also moments that reek the sweat of an obese, old circus wrestler who tries to entertain you with "special" moves that simply lack the kind of attraction/risk you would ever want to revisit upon successfully enduring watching those during one miserable sitting.

This band brings you an almost friendly, tender kind of quasi-sludge to encompass the record's omnipresent urge to reveal a natural slickness on bluesy registers, but the compositions show mixed results, as great moments are often interrupted by mildly efficient choruses that sound to fail to topple their preceding occurrences.

Some refrains, as you will see through examples to be given later, sound to come through as desperate attempts to release your attention momentarily from the torment that it gets the weeping slave of when the palette of elegant bluesy vibes have lost all their entertainment value for a second or two, but STILL they come to beat your awareness up in an attempt to force your last, remaining bit of appreciation for them from you. Oh, you would have been so happy and so willing to give it to them later. Sometimes you have to HATE when they want to take away from you what you want to give.

The chorus of the track called Curl of the Burl, - which is one of the most solid songs on the entire album, along with Stargasm, the Depeche Mode sludge titular track The Hunter and a tremendous end sequence composed of the last three pieces - sounds like this : "oh, oooh, oh, oooh!" And the chorus of the follow-up track, called Blasteroid, sounds like this : "ooooh, oh!, oh, oh, oh!" Help me or let me help you, Jesus. Read more to find out how this record rumbles through and stumbles in its own footprints.


Mastodon's The Hunter has solid, traditional sludge/blues rock charms whenever it chooses to be brisk and/or narrative, whereas the "rumble" it tries to produce as yet another primer agenda, simply does not feel to be served sufficiently, courtesy of inconsistent efforts exhibited on the compositional fields of the release. The least efficient segments of this spin reek of sweat of trying to summon a vibe similar to that contained in a vile and filthy fashion on the elegant effort Uncle Acid & The Deadbeat's Blood Lust, but Mastodon's rendition of this particular target-vibe is prone to be bogged down here and there with sequences that seem to have come out of nowhere and seem to serve no particular function. This is not too frequent, fortunately, but when it occurs, it occurs rampantly. The track called Octopus Has No Friends, for instance.

Notice the soul-swallower chorus. "I'm on my way back home!", then repeat. Man, I really really wish you'd reach home. The vibe of the chorus clearly is an aspiration to toll Foo Fighter's There Goes My Hero, only this time, the vibe is squashed by the mighty penis of a mastodon. What can you say beside : aua.

Another strange thing : opening track "Black Tongue". The lyrics go like this :

"I burned out my eyes
I cut off my tongue"

...

This is like : badass! (And, by the way, you are singing pretty well without a tongue, too.)

Fortunately, a good amount of tracks come to you with strong melodic structures to successfully reveal the main ambition of embedding legit blues rock into the mastodonic sludge, and this aspiration emerges solid through both brisk and midtempo segments of the album. Then again, other tracks border on the characteristics of Simon and Garfunkelish lullabies, now supported by incapacitated coffee grinder guitars that sound to prefer to call it a wrap and go home instead ASAP. This is the track called "The Creature Lives". Later on, the song reveals the nature of a Scottish folk song, and, when you realize that the main attraction of the declaration is to soak you into the sear enigma of directionless open power chords being ringed around for two minutes or so into wild space, you truly are left without a clue.

This strange development, fortunately, is assuaged greatly by a particularly strong ending portion, as the final three tracks give you superbly sculpted, eventful and especially melodic content that packs both the rabid sludge-animal and the promise of it being tamed at any moment. A mildly inconsistent spin that sounds to have spent a tad less time in the stove than it has signed on for, but its strongest moments guarantee an intimate, eventful and serious listening experience.

Rating : 7.5 / 10

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Yob - Atma review

Year : 2011
Genre : Sludge Doom
Label : Profound Lore
Origin : United States
Rating : 8.2 / 10

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Oregon based sludge splasher Yob already has a dedicated fanbase, and it is not without reason, of course. The superficial listener would assume that this trio delivers this extreme sludge metal to eradicate the will to live, but this could not be farer from the truth. Sludge seems to be an art form that is quite suitable to confront your beginner or black belt level demons through the register this music takes place on. While the rules of this style are relatively rigorous, its interpretation field is limitless.

The direction of the sludge can happen for the cleansing, and, for the defilement of the autonomous soul / awareness that connects with it. Some may connect with the filth so they can be free from it when functioning onwards after the listening experience, while others may be depressed by it, by falsely thinking that sludge's agenda is to depress. Nah. Proper sludge simply does not give a sear shit what you do with it. The best part of Yob's latest is that it is this exact kind of - paradoxically enough - elegant nihil-sludge, while the only shortcoming you will likely experience as an appreciator of sludge, is this : the five monstrous tracks of this LP show minor - and ONLY minor - inconsistency regarding the power they are pushing your face into the sludge with. Read on to find more on how much of your spiritual integrity will remain after colliding with this here sledgehammer baby.


The basic methodology the release is employing is easy to grasp unto, as this one is a methodology of a lazy, but quite-quite solid sledgehammer logic. A sludge sobriety that has elaborate tools in its possession it can corner your musical awareness with. After an acceptable and risk free "let's take this decent sludge riff to its logical conclusion" opening track, the second track, called Atma, has all the chance in the world to alter your mood dramatically. It either wrecks it, or cleanses your soul proper. It is up to you, it is your right and decision to select the mark you want the music to leave on you, the content simply needs to render the pattern and the route, and the feeling you walk through on it with, is yours to shape to, so it can shape you.

Atma does render the route, no problem : the opening notes of the first riff are evidently out to administer the hurt real bad, but, their intent to utterly crush is super-obvious, and it is hard to take them serious. The riff, elegantly enough, realizes this deliberate deficit in its character, and the shady thing offers you a hand to shake, via adding a consecutive element to itself, an element that has a friendly, almost tender vibe to it. A tender vibe with such fragile of a duration that you will end up wondering if it really happened at all. Conclusion : when you reach out to shake the hand, only THEN you will see it is holding a knife, though it did NOT, when you started to reach out to accept the handshake. This is the kind of feeling the riff goes for, and this is a much rarer sensation to experience musically, than it is to be crushed by a riff. There are dozens of great riffs on this planet that crush proper, but not many that do deceive masterfully. The LP's second track gives you such a riff, and also it gives this delicately deceiving musical experience.

This titular track, Atma, is great from another point of view, as well. It features an additional sequence that is likely to put a mark in a part of you that you did not know you had. The middle build of the song consists of an extremely down tuned guitar, chugging proudly and infinitely bitterly about the twisted kind of beauty it finds in the sharply defined misery he is devoted representer and slave of, but, here is the catch : this tormented guitar has brought with itself an army of undead just for good measure, and, to make sure you take its meaning seriously. In the middle section of the track's fabric, this almost tragicomic, intent menace of this seemingly solitary, twisted and tormented down tuned chug gets a short, complimentary support from the sonic power of the ENTIRE band, from time to time. They draw short, sharp, and powerful riff patterns, as light would slap the darkness, just to reveal random average tormented zombie faces, and, when darkness falls again, only the chug remains. The chug with a new resonance, one that rides on a fresh promise, a promise that the chug, in fact, might STILL not be alone at all. You can't be sure until the twisted kind of light decides to show up again.

The track Upon the Sight of the Other Shore has a healthy amount of inventive surprises in store for you, as well. This song, while spouting out a sludge that has the capacity to make fun of-, to submit to-, and to soulrape the vibe of folk at the same time, features an impressive vocal contribution with such legitimate howling incorporated in it that you have ever hoped (?) to hear, while, in the later portion of the track, the primal riff suddenly finds itself dwelling in the comfort of madness.

The track Adrift in the Ocean features a set of strong, easily decipherable musical ideas once again being taken to their respective logical conclusions along a well balanced "let's bury hope for fun and see how that feels like" style, and the sludge never loses a continuous, elegant narrative it is riding on. A narrative that exhibits a propensity to construct hope, but demands the right to kill it upon interception. This is the kind of sludge that has a well defined awareness of the entertainment value of its own, intimate and expressed sentiments, and, as such, it does not lose from its charisma by committing the mistake of over-repetition. Yob's sludging is well varied, yet the sludging in Adrift in the Ocean sounds to be one of the most flamboyant sequences on the spin.

This awareness of the mere efficiency of the sludge is almost ever-present on the record, and moments of less appeal and related-, shallower sequences of content-richness are hard to stumble upon, fortunately. Yob's Atma is a sludge pile big enough to wrap a soul around, and also one that no doubt demands a multitude of spins to reveal all aspects of its doubtlessly strong and ripe character.

Rating : 8.2 / 10

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