Tag: sludge
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Brainoil – Brainoil
Like fellow Oakland outfit Noothgrush, Brainoil is/was a Bay Area sludge band that only issued one album, disappeared, then more recently reunited with new material (which I reviewed here three years ago). Well, this is that album, soon-to-be reissued by Tankcrimes Records. It’s no Erode the Person, but tis certainly none too shabby. The band…
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Snailking – Storm
You know you’ve been listening to this shit for a while when you start seeing bands named after some of your favourite albums. Y’know, like the Polish band Dopesmoker or Dopethrone from Montreal. Hell, there’s even an outfit named after the Truckfighters tune Desert Cruiser—though I guess that one shouldn’t be such a surprise. In…
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Sorxe – Surrounded by Shadows
Though I haven’t heard of them before, Sorxe is part of the same Arizona sludge scene as the likes of TOAD, Godhunter and North — not to mention the Southwest Terror Fest, which I hope to attend some day — so that’s good enough for me to give ’em a listen. “Steamroller” comes rolling out…
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Cardinal Wyrm – Black Hole Gods
There have been enough notable sludge/doom outfits from down by the Bay Area—Sleep, Noothgrush, Neurosis, to name but a few—that when a newer outfit from San Fran or Oakland starts getting some press, I’d naturally be inclined to stop and check them out. But Cardinal Wyrm, much like the Finns in Cardinals Folly, employs the same…
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Mars Red Sky – Stranded in Arcadia
I must be Facebook friends with someone in this French outfit, cuz I remember getting a request to “like” ’em a little while back, well before this album came out. Let me just say, I like ’em a lot. Mars Red Sky take a more melodic approach to stoner rock, still fuzzy but not fuzzed-out, with some…
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Mortals – Cursed to See the Future
Much of the time I tend to shy away from bands that are getting a lot of buzz. At least at first. Not because I don’t trust the hype – and I don’t – but because, well, I don’t want to be one of those guys who loves everything everyone else loves. Enter Mortals. I’ve…
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The Cutthroats 9 – Dissent
This Bay Area trio, The Cutthroats 9, features howling madman frontman Chris Spencer of Unsane fame and released its debut on Man’s Ruin, waaaaay back in the day. Based on that information, I think you can take a guess as to what Dissent, their comeback EP, might sound like. And you’d be pretty much right.…
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Beastwars – Beastwars
Being that this was an independently-issued release outta New Zealand, of all places, I must admit I missed Beastwars’ debut the first time around. But the band has generated a bit of buzz, seeing as they’re the heaviest thing to hit Godzone since the Big Sheep Shearer, and as such, we’re getting a vinyl reissue…
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Corrosion of Conformity – IX
Since the original/core members of Corrosion of Conformity decided to carry on sans Pepper Keenan they’ve been on a tear. 2012 saw their “comeback” self-titled album. Then came the Eye for an Eye reissue and Megalodon EP. Now just in time for Summer, Reed Mullin, Woody Weatherman and Mike Dean deliver unto us a new…
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Graves at Sea/Sourvein Split
The split EP is as essential to sludge metal as cough syrup and Southern Comfort. And for these two long-dormant acts—particularly the former—this concoction of an EP goes down like a mixture of those two elixirs. Like the syrup and the whiskey, Graves at Sea and Sourvein leave you raw and nauseous, but ultimately, cure…