Although you’d probably be hard-pressed to find it on these northern shores, I had a buddy of mine smuggle a copy of Curse the Son’s previous album, Psychache. At the time, they were largely a local, unsigned Connecticut band, but had started to make a name for themselves with their heavy brand of stoom. Alas, Isolator, the band’s third album, was just picked up by stoner/doom label The Company for a proper vinyl release after being issued independently last year.
The title track opens on an almost jazzy note, with some soft cymbal hits and melodic basslines—but it takes less than a minute to rev up to full-fledged sludgy stoner doom, complete with king-sized riffs that hit like a ton o’ bricks! “Callous Unemotional Traits” combines a killer Chandler-style Vitus riff with a soaring vocal that’s equal parts Ozzy and Albert Witchfinder. “Sleepwalker Wakes” is an equally heavy vegetable, with a drowsy, droning riff interplaying nicely with a softer, high-pitched vocal on the verse, before culminating in a slow ‘n heavy chorus. This is what doom is supposed to sound like, kids. The bone-crushing riff that comes in around the four-minute mark kinda reminds me of the dearly departed Gates of Slumber, so there ya go!
Likewise, the Cisneros-style bassline that drives the verses of “Hull Crush Depth” trades off nicely with the sickly sweet vocals, with the guitars not joining the fray until around the two-minute mark—only to give way back to bass as the next verse kicks in. The bass tone actually shifts from Al Cisneros to more of a Les Claypool style toward the end, right before “Gaslighter” kicks in with the thick, doomy guitar riff its predecessor was missing. Man, I’d really like to read the lyrics to this one… “Aislamiento,” which is more or less the Spanish translation of the album title, does not include any singing en español, but while the verses are once again sparse and vocal driven, the heavy riffs that kick in periodically kinda remind me of hispanohablante hashishians Corrupted, or perhaps their Japanese brethren Church of Misery—if they were fronted by Ozzy Osbourne. Put that in yer pipe and smoke it!
