Everything in Canada is supposed to be nice, right? That Trudeau bloke’s boyish grin; the clean, crisp air; the way the natives go ‘Eh’ at the end of a sentence in a wonderfully endearing way. Tell that to Resent. The 2018 demo from the Victoria, British Columbia based quartet was one of the most frightening exercises in putrid Sludge I’d ever encountered, and new album Crosshairs (Dry Cough Records / Nerve Altar / Rope Or Guillotine) promises only to extend the suffering…
Usually, Metal from Finland is incarcerated inside a cocoon of cold Death and/or melancholy. For the last seven years, however, Helsinki trio Slave Hands has rebelled against the norm to peddle a particularly horrific brand of Doom-flavoured Sludge, and No More Feelings (Dry Cough Records/Gate Of Deliria/Minor Obscure/Sewer Prison), the band’s fourth album in that time, continues down that solitary, diseased path.Continue reading
For the fortieth release of its cruel, fetid existence, Dry Cough Records has chosen to issue forth another slab of tortured hate, this time from intentional duo Meth Fetish. The band, another project from the farm of Pissboiler and Droneologist whizzkid Karl Jonas Wijk, throw myriad nasty ingredients into debut EP Meth Fetish (Dry Cough Records) and as a result, have surfaced with something of a brute. The crushing riff and protesting squeal combo kicking off opener ‘Blinded To The Suffering’ is absolutely brutal, yet possesses the slowest, most muscular groove which twists the guts in joyous fashion. Long-time cohort Damien Sharrock‘s horrific vocal scour is the perfect accompaniment to this pummelling racket, slow medieval torture with the diseased larynx of a religious zealot dripping pure enmity into the victim’s face.Continue reading
New York’s Black Metal collective Krallice has announced they will be releasing their first four albums in remastered reissues, according to Gilead Media. These albums include Krallice (2008), Dimensional Bleedthrough (2009), Diotima (2011), and Years Past Matter (2012) will be re-issued using brand new masters by guitarist/engineer Colin Marston. Each album will be available on limited smoky color vinyl and feature revised artwork.Pre-orders are live now in North America via Gilead’s website (link below). These albums will be available for pre-order soon in the UK via the Dry Cough label. The rest of the EU will see the release of these albums via Throatruiner/Deathwish Inc. Krallice released a new album in early 2019 that you can also purchase now.Continue reading
Scottish doom metal band Ommadon has decided to break up. The band made the announcement with a terse Facebook post today, offering no further details. The band was signed to Dry Cough Records but was also affiliated with At War With False Noise (UK), and DGR Entertainment (USA). They release their latest album End Times this past spring. Continue reading
This torturously heavy UK trio Monoliths is so recently formed that I couldn’t dig up anything on them for weeks. Knowing that it was comprised of members from Bismuth, Moloch and Ommadon, however, enlightened me to my fate for the following half-hour.
Getting crushed by a Fuck-off monster of a traction engine. If our US cousins aren’t too sure what one of those is…well, it’s not an easy way to go. The first of two colossal tracks on début Monoliths (Dry Cough Records /Crown & Throne Ltd.), ‘Perpetual Motion’, begins and ends with a disturbing fuzz that leaves you in no doubt what’s coming and, in closing, what has just been. Tanya Byrne’s swerving bass thrum knocks you off your feet but, as the track ebbs and flows, nuances appear as mini-crescendos swirling around the mind. David Tobin’s solo breaks the Om-esque hypnosis which the terrifying riff and Henry Davies’ wondrously tempered drums hammer through the solar plexus, hardly breaking the lumbering pace yet bewitching the senses with its pulverising might. I’m not usually one for instrumentals but this carries me to far-off lands on the back of a yeti.
The monumental, everlasting pummel of ‘The Omnipresence of Emptiness’ takes a short while to move through the volume, and to that familiar bass bellow. Yet when the whole thing crashes together it is a life-ending implosion, carrying depth and weight suitable for the occasion. Missing the latent groove of its forefather, subsequently this is the harder track with which to find an immediate affinity until the most unnerving, horrifying roar introduces a shattering solo. It’s here where one realises the flattening power of the drums, while the other ingredients of this plundering sortie become so unfathomably heavy I completely lost where I was, bemused by the sheer weight yet moved by a scintilla of emotion.
Look, this is no epiphany. It is, however, a near-perfect slab of evil Doom and an excuse for lovers of this stuff to completely lose their shit. In making something usually so monotonous and pulverising sound immediate, occasionally moving, and unmissable, Monoliths prove themselves an essential addition to the Low-end canon.
8.5/10.0
PAUL QUINN
Doom tends to be somewhat formulaic, it’s part of its gloomy charm. To be appreciated fully it’s generally best to be played at skeleton shaking volume. As a whole the genre isn’t particularly suited for records unless you happen to have a wall of cabinets in your house raring and ready to give your neighbours tinnitus. Ommadon’s eponymously titled album on Dry Cough Records follows that doom formula very well. Fleshed out with production from Billy Anderson meaning that the tone is excellent throughout both tracks.
The problem sets in somewhat with the fact that as it’s a two-piece instrumental doom act, they’ve kind of played themselves into a corner. What they do is good, but there’s not really all that much which they can do to make it stand out from the many other doom bands playing the same standard ‘bumbum bumbum BAAAM’ doom riff.
By foregoing vocals, the focus goes entirely onto the music to carry the emotion of the piece and unfortunately no matter how good the tone or the performance the standard hit the guitar/drums, wait, repeat formula just lacks an emotional depth after hearing it repeated for half an hour.
That’s not to say that it doesn’t have merit, with the tone and competency I would imagine this really comes into its own live, with the benefit of much higher volume, a mesmerised audience filling a small sweaty venue on a dreek day. Then it would have relevance and connect with the listener.
However, on record there’s nothing really hear which separates it from any other doom band I’ve heard. What it does is competent, with a great tone. However, there’s little to make it stand out from the crowd.
6.0/10
RICH PRICE
Around the same time last year, Primitive Man and Sea Bastard released two of the most hateful – and well received – products of the year. The former’s vicious EP Home is Where the Hatred Is (Relapse) and the latter’s nightmarish split with Keeper (Dry Cough Records) were followed by a joint tour of the UK last spring and, with this split release (Dry Cough Records), the bonds the two outfits have forged now become indelible.
Primitive Man’s two tracks kick us off, and with a familiar feel: the band’s squalling, Blackened Sludge given added horror by the face-melting roar of Ethan McCarthy. The clanking, Low-end ferocity of ‘Cold Resolve’ is certainly augmented by some of McCarthy’s most fearsome barks to date, and the portentous squeals of the sinister drop are enough to collapse the nervous system. The resonance of bass and drums launching us into ‘Servant’ also have a primal minimalism which clears the bowels: its fizzing, sparing riff a tolling bell which flays the skin with each swing, McCarthy’s voice the scouring brush rubbing salt in the open wounds, the brief quickening a Deathly flash. It’s a terrifying assault: appalling, guttural, startling, physically affecting…and damn satisfying.
Another near-20 minute slice of snaking pummel from Brighton’s finest closes this tormenting platter. ‘The Hermit’ largely follows the Bastard template but unusually, so gradually you hardly notice, it gathers pace through a viscerally pounding, pregnant centrepiece. Oli Irongiant’s deep, singular, painfully slow riff sets the tone before the lumbering behemoth is brutally awoken by the pulverising rhythms of Steve Patton and George Leaver. Telling the tale of the persecuted Northern monk St Cuthbert, Monty’s screaming roar wraps itself around the mellow hundredweight like your favourite Serpentine villain, rising and falling with each line, carrying that Sabbath-esque quickening toward a low, nefarious final movement which is both torturous and earth-shaking.
This “split” has been in the pipeline for some time and, thankfully, it’s been worth the wait. Crushing and hostile, these are two of the most exciting Doom-centric bands around right now and to have them both on one plate is a horrifying bliss.
8.5/10
PAUL QUINN