The deep, dirty bass riff to ‘The Gathering’, the opening track from Gothenburg swamp monsters Galvano’s sophomore full-length Trail of the Serpent (Candlelight), intimates a Stoner pace but lends a slightly mournful edge. The ensuing explosion is a brutal, elephantine amalgam of Mastodon’s blistering Prog with Mattias Nӧӧjd’s roar, possessing the diseased phlegm of both Chris ‘C.T.’ Terry and Matt Pike. Rhythms fizz and pulsate, whilst riffs that should have the turning circle of the QE2 judder and flip on a sixpence. The crash is incendiary, the slower elements losing no urgency yet retaining that hint of melancholy.
The ensuing conflagration of ‘Following the Trail’ is savage and intense, burning as hard and bright as the harsher face of Yob, and unaffected by the lack of the Oregon trio’s mysticism due to the fulminating power and passion on display here. None of the four tracks clock in under nine minutes so to ensure this largely unflinching sound remains compelling is no mean feat. It’s one that the band achieve with relative ease; the fuzzed, coruscating riff and rolling drums segueing into ‘Stench of Prey’ with little distortion yet the leaden groove, pummelling yet metronomic, distinguishes the change alongside the tolling undercurrent.
Drummer Fredrik Kӓll’s pacy work is reminiscent of Travis Foster’s rhythmic battery whilst the intricate riff, bouncing off walls and sending sonic pulses into the stratosphere, takes the track into a wholly unexpected breakdown of ominous acoustic strings before recommencing the violence. The droning feedback and portentous beat of closer ‘Driven Snow’ briefly sends further change to the ears just at the point of a burgeoning fear that the rasping template is beginning to wear. This steels the listener for the final barrage of a quite electrifying album; the buzzing, building, claustrophobic coda of which is an utter joy.
Though short on chords there’s a Sludgy force here that will take your head clean off, the Stoner element thrashing it around as if in the jaws of a great white; whilst that small current of lamentation suggests it feels bad about hurting you.
Pensive, crushing, and bloody enjoyable.
8.0/10
PAUL QUINN