They may be named after an Electric Wizard record, but I’ve always found Dopethrone to be more like Canada’s answer to Bongzilla, with heavy, hazy riffs and drug references abound on their fifth full-length album.
Transcanadian Anger kicks off with a fuzzy rumble on “Planet Meth,” a downtuned, downtrodden stomp with shades of EHG. The heavy grooves will get your head nodding on this one—bathtub crank not included. “Wrong Sabbath” begins with a Sleepy bass line, a mellower intro giving way to some pure Pike worship. “Killdozer” is a lumbering, rumbling piece of sludge that definitely brings Bongzilla to mind, while “Scuzzgasm” has some of the best NOLA-style sludge riffs you’ll hear this year.
The second half is loaded with drug numbers like the Weedeater sneer of “Tweak Jabber,” the lugubrious “Snort Dagger” and “Kingbilly Kush,” a bastardized sludge-metal version of ZZ Top’s “Tush,” which, in this case, is about weed. “Miserabilist” ends things on another Eyehategod/Bongzilla note, a gritty sludge number with some vicious guest vocals. This record might not stand out in the Dopethrone discography, but it’s sludge done just the way I like it.
dopethrone.bandcamp.com/album/transcanadian-anger
