February 9th and 10th the Footprint Center stage, in Phoenix, AZ, lit up with the powerhouse that is Tool with direct support from Boston bred/and mostly now Germany-based band Elder. Elder started by warming up our ears to their heavy riffs and long instrumentals. This was my first time experiencing Elder, and I had never heard of the band until then. After this one experience though, I can easily see how the band fits and compliments Tool on this tour, as they too have some psychedelic and captivating soundscapes that just simply fits. Continue reading
Tag Archives: Dark psychedelia
ALBUM REVIEW: Racetraitor – Creation and the Timeless Order of Things
In dire times of crisis and injustice caused by oppressive systems, the least we can do is to voice our aspirations through the creative media that we have going – and that’s what the hardcore unit Racetraitor have been doing. Racetraitor has always been a band that’s ahead of their time – voicing opinions on systemic racism and white privilege before they were even often discussed in a large audience.
ALBUM REVIEW: BIG | BRAVE – Vital
The role of mythology is to inspire both individual and collective growth through storytelling. Myths do that by making sense of the world. Vital (Southern Lord) by BIG | BRAVE is a mythical-sounding album that does just that. Of the colossal yet intimate Vital, the Doom-Sludge trio from Montreal featuring Robin Wattie, Mathieu Ball, and Tasy Hudson says, “This album involves what it means navigating the outside world in a racialized body and what it does to the psyche as a whole while exploring individual worth within this reality.” Vital tells a story through sound that makes sense of the modern world, prompting growth for those who listen.
Fvnerals-Wounds
For the last three years, Scottish based, but Brighton born Fvnerals have been honing their art, an often beguiling mix of ethereal and claustrophobic. The band live in that dark and often unforgiving hinterland of emotional and oppressive soundscapes which can either sound like utterly pretentious cobblers or deeply moving and affecting fayre, dependent on your point of view.Continue reading
Nightslug – Loathe
Metal, especially Extreme Metal, can be somewhat… single-minded. It doesn’t need to be a bad thing – this unsubtle devotion to conjuring a particular mood or emotion has led to some of the most beloved classics of the genre – but sometimes a can be so focussed on their goal that they forget to include anything else.
Nightslug are horrible. Being horrible is what they do. It’s all they do. Sewage thick guitars, crude, ugly riffs, tortured vocals and bursts of feedback-laden noise create a genuinely unpleasant atmosphere, but it’s not clear what they really want to do with that atmosphere once they have it. Riffs churn endlessly with no clear aim in sight, tension is built and not effectively released, and tracks run into another with no real sense of purpose. One of the biggest traps in playing this kind of Sludge or slow Doom is the very fine line between hypnotic and boring – and it’s a trap that Nightslug never really release themselves from.
Part of the problem with Loathe (Broken Limbs/Dry Cough/Lost Pilgrims) is that in the last few years a number of bands – Keeper, Primitive Man and Indian amongst them – have been pushing the envelope on music which is both disgusting and interesting. Abstract compositions and elements of psychedelia and Electronic Noise have taken sludge metal into disturbing, engaging new territories – but Nightslug just want to keep playing big horrible riffs all day and croaking. I can imagine them going down well live in the right context, but on record there’s just not enough to distinguish them from a large number of other bands who’ve done the same thing.
If you’ve been reading this and wondering what I’m complaining about, then it’s probably worth giving Loathe a shot. Nightslug achieve exactly what they set out to, and they’re certainly garnering positive reviews elsewhere for doing so, but if your expectations of disgusting, slow music have been raised by recent releases from more adventurous bands, you’re likely to find Loathe disappointing in its lack of ambition.
5.0/10
RICHIE HR