This husband/wife, bass/drums, stoner/doom duo is sorta like Seattle’s answer to Jucifer… only without quite as many amplifiers, I presume. After their debut album dropped last year, they’ve followed it up with this five-song, 25-minute, 12-inch EP on Magnetic Eye Records.
“Cold” wastes little time in getting down to business, with a heavy, fuzzy bass line and pounding percussion. The verses are sparse and vocal-driven, with plaintive, longing female vocals driving the proceedings, but they bring back the heavy for a wailing chorus before going off on an extended instrumental break toward the end. A cleaner, mellower bass line begins “The Descent,” before it descends into another flurry of downtrodden doom. The melodic vocals really soar on this one, and they even throw in some piano toward the end. Fans of Ides of Gemini would really dig this.
The title track is faster than its predecessors, delivering a mid-tempo stoner-rock groove along with a gritty vocal and a “Burn in Hell” chorus that would make Dee Snider proud. This tune takes a turn for the gloomy around the mid-way mark, slowing to a menacing sludge crawl, only to deliver one more fast-paced chorus at the end.
“The Howl” picks up where its slow, lumbering predecessor’s second half left off, with a heavy intro that begets another more mid-paced, vocal-dominant verse, throwing in a couple vicious stop-start breakdowns for good measure. “And They Sang” has a fuzzy stomp that kinda reminds me of Boris’ Pink album. Not a bad note to end on!
yearofthecobra.bandcamp.com/album/burn-your-dead
