Sludge Metal

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Demonic Death Judge – The Descent (2011)

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    Rounding up the promo package we received from Inverse Records, today we have Demonic Death Judge and their highly entertaining mixture of Sludge Metal with Black Metal. Before you start frowning in disgust, you actually have to give this band a chance and listen to their very original musical approach. The only band we can think that plays something in this alley is Glorior Belli on their last album “The Great Southern Darkness”.

    Opening with “Nepal”, the band fully explodes into some crunchy riffing and very hellish vocals. While this combination might sound odd at first, it slowly grows on you. The guitar work is very traditional Sludge/Southern inspired and the atmosphere feels this way, but the vocals gravitate towards another area. There are some very good acoustic melodies thrown into the mix that makes this song even more appealing.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Black Skies – On the Winds of Time (2011)

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    Hailing from the USA, we have another Sludge band that sounds exactly like everybody else and that it is making its debut full-length statement with “On the Winds of Time”. So why should we not say this is total crap and skip to the next album we have to review? Well, because there is just a little something that makes them a bit interesting to listen to.

    Combining a very organic sound, this record sounds like it was recorded during a rehearsal in a live fashion. The guitars are crunchy, but not over produced and neither over stylized that you can’t really make this sounds in a natural way. The drums are very raw, and while basic and amateurish sounding at times, they sound legit and fit very well with the music.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Woburn House – Sleep Summer Storm (2011)

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    After getting a quadrillion Sludge releases that all sound the same, it is quite refreshing to listen to Woburn House’s “Sleep Summer Storm”. In their third full-length release, the band delivers eight tracks of very interesting sounding music that mixes Progressive and Atmospheric elements with a hefty Doom-ier Sludge, something that we can’t really say we have heard before.

    Opening with “Willow”, the band delivers heavy riffs and a nice paced tempo that allows the mood of the song (and album) to nicely set it. The drowsy vocals are excellent for this type of music and greatly add to the overall atmosphere of the release. In faster pace and with a more bizarre atmosphere, “Shifter” shows that the band can shake things up a bit and still achieve the same interesting sound. The guitar work is very well crafted and the tempo set by the drumming is just perfect for this kind of music. For more Progressive/Post-Metal-ish guitars, “Rain Keeps Falling Down” has a hefty dose of them.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Black Cobra – Invernal (2011)

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    As hard-hitting as a bag of bricks, today we have Black Cobra’s fourth full-length release “Invernal”. Following the same devastating path as in “Chronomega”, the band delivers 40 minutes of relentless riffing and crushing drumming all packaged in eight well balanced tracks. Not reinventing the wheel or anything, Black Cobra excels at what they do and do not try anything pretentious a very effective approach due to their own sound and power.

    Getting right down to business, “Avalanche” delivers punishing riffs and well paced drums. The band’s power is made known since the first track and never goes too soft or two slow, like most Sludge/Doom bands these days. Jason’s vocals are very fitting of the music and deliver the band’s message in a powerful way. But his guitar skills are what make this release quite interesting to the ear.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    The Ocean – Anthropocentric (2010)

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    A few months after the release of “Heliocentric”, we get “Anthropocentric”, the more aggressive and crushing continuation (and conclusion) to the band’s critique on Christianity started with “Heliocentric”. While The Ocean still incorporates some of their traditional classical instruments in “Anthropocentric”, this release is by far much more aggressive and straight forward than their previous one.

    With another 50 minutes of monumental Progressive Sludge/Metal, the band greatly enhances the listening experience of “Heliocentric”, we found ourselves playing both records back to back in order to get the full effect and conceptual message of this very well crafted releases. The band immediately starts with a very crushing track in “Anthropocentric”, often weaving back and forth between pounding riffs with harsh vocals and brilliant clean vocal harmonies and more melodic guitar lines.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Ramesses – Take the Curse (2010)

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    All the way from the UK, today we get on our review queue Ramesses latest crushing releases “Take the Curse”. While we are huge Doom Metal fans, we tend to go for the Death-Doom bands rather than the Sludge/Psychedelic Metal bands. Ramesses falls on the second category and while not our favorite band in the world, they do a great job in creating 10 solid tracks for this new release.

    The problem most people might have about Sludge/Doom Metal is the lack of ‘originality’ and diversity than most bands present. We rather look at Sludge/Doom Metal releases from a perspective of effectiveness rather than originality or diversity, and Ramesses is a very effective band in our opinion. The band creates a very bleak and sometimes trippy atmosphere that not everybody pulls off these days.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Kruger – For Death, Glory and the End of the World (2010)

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    Out of the very impressive roster of Listenable Records, we get today another genre-bending band. Kruger hails from Switzerland and their combination of Sludge/Groove and Post-Metal is superb. For over 45 minutes “For Death, Glory and the End of the Word” delivers 9 brutal tracks.

    With the waves of new bands coming out these days it’s very hard to bump into one that makes you fully appreciate the art of crafting a different sound that is both powerful and enthralling. Kruger achieves this since the first song, with a brilliant combination of aggressive ‘Sludgy’ riffs, aggressive vocals and solid drumming.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Mouth Of The Architect – The Violence Beneath (2010)

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    American Sludge Metal monsters are back with “The Violence Beneath”, a four song EP that features two new songs, a live song and a cover of Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes”. While we feel that this EP does a good job to create anticipation for the band’s future full-length release, an anticipation that is currently burning inside us, since we really enjoy Mouth Of The Architect’s (MOTA) releases.

    Two years have passed since their crushing album “Quietly” and we were wondering what was going out with MOTA. With the two new tracks “The Violence Beneath” and “Buried Hopes” we get a nice continuation from where the band left off with “Quietly”.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    The Abominable Iron Slot – The Id Will Overcome (2010)

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    Hailing from several cities across the USA we have The Abominable Iron Slot or is it The Indomitable Iron slot?? Since they keep changing it we kind of lost track of it, but apparently the CD has the first name on its cover. Anyways, the band plays Sludge/Stoner Metal with as much inspiration as you can get from watching paint dry.

    We usually like good releases in the Sludge/Stoner metal genre, but “The Id Will Overcome” is definitely not one of them. Using a massive amount of recycled riffs through this album, we feel the band’s inspiration was almost not existent and they just chugged out whatever they could come up in a few minutes.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Black Cobra – Chronomega (2009)

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    Black Cobra is a two man band that plays very rudimentary but effective Sludge/Doom Metal, something that newer bands have problems doing so, by trying to be ‘extra awesome’ and using assloads of different distortions and fancy recording gimmicks.

    “Chronomega” features 9 tracks of crushing Sludge Metal, now on Southern Lord, the band shows that their basic style is effective enough to trump any other release of this genre. It’s heavy, is ‘sluggish’, is lo-fi, and it’s very effective.

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