Burke and Hare – Burke and Hare (Review)

Burke and Hare are a UK sludge metal band and this is their debut EP.

Here we have just over 12 minutes of ugly heaviness, just the we like it for this kind of sludge-driven hideousness.

This is heavy and nasty, taking sludge’s forthright nature and marrying it with a bit of a stoner element.

Rhino Ket introduces us to the band’s sludgy grimness. It does this very effectively, and has one Hell of a stomping riff in it too. Thick, meaty guitars seem to stalk along as the singer does his best to growl, scream, and vomit his way through the playing time. It ends with a brief couple of seconds of grinding speed, which is a nice touch.

A1M starts like the bastard offspring of Eyehategod and Grief, all belligerent heaviness and confident attitude. It quickly changes to something along the lines of a punk-driven Raging Speedhorn, which really grabs my attention and works very well. Consider those proverbial cobwebs well and truly blown away. Driven by rabid screams, the track’s a winner.

We end with Suburban Coven, which continues more in line with A1M rather than Rhino Ket. It sounds absolutely savage, with the vocals in particular becoming quite unhinged. With a Dopethrone-heavy vibe, the song is way more catchy and memorable than it probably should be for something as uncompromisingly vicious as it is. Everything ends in screaming feedback, just as it probably should.

Also, I haven’t mentioned it yet, but the bass guitar sounds monstrous. Yes, we like this very much.

All three songs are well-written and demonstrate a band that have a firm handle on things when it comes to constructing enjoyable sludge metal songs. Another thing I like about them too is that even though you can easily see where their influences come from, they mix them up and add more than enough elements of their own personality to make this EP a real treat to listen to rather than a derivative chore.

Very enjoyable indeed. Burke and Hare are now officially earmarked for good things in my little black book of bands to watch.