Doom – Page 144 – Wonderbox Metal

Fange – Poisse (Review)

Fange are from France and play Sludge Metal. This is their first release.

Ooooohhhh this is has got one Hell of a sexy, filthy, fuzzbastard sound! This is the kind of dirty Sludge I like!

Big beats and harsh, swampy riffs combined with feedback and desolate Doom atmospheres means the songs are like trawling though a mire, (Fange = mire in French). You are struggling for air as the boggy grime seeps into your pores and gets under your skin and into every orifice. Doesn’t sound very nice? It isn’t, but then Sludge should never be nice.

There are some great, bouncy riffs here in addition to the slower onslaughts. Cloches Fendues is a great example as it alternates between a dirty Stoner-esque riff and apocalyptic Doom. Top stuff.

The vocals are low in the mix like something just under the surface. Shrieking, snarling, chanting, beseeching, shouting, spitting, vomiting; who knows what they’re actually doing but suffice to say that the singer’s clearly into it.

Hidden behind the miasma of unclean riffing the band actually have a firm grasp of atmosphere. Ammoniac displays a masterful use of subtle tension to greatly enhance the feeling of danger that the song already gives off.

A good amount of variety, violent playfulness and content sees this release firmly in the winner’s category; 29 minutes of Sludge Metal that takes the standard Eyehategod template, covers it in a tonne of sewage and plays with the remains.

For fans of ugly music done right.

Favourite Track: Suaire. Sludge-tastic.

Mournful Congregation – Concrescence Of The Sophia (Review)

This is the latest EP from Australia’s Doom kings Mournful Congregation.

This is Funeral Doom played slow and insistent. The band have honed their skills over many a long year and this latest release sees them shaping and unleashing two new tracks on the world.

The first song Concrescence Of The Sophia is a 21:41 minute trawl through all things Funeral; the band having refined their sense of dirge to the point of exquisite melancholy and dampened moods. Here we are taken through a slowly unwinding journey where flowing riffs, acoustic passages and deep, end-of-the-world vocals are your travel companions.

The song plays like a slowed down hymn to all things rotten and weary, and just when things pick up slightly and some semblance of speed emerges, all of a sudden hope is lost and we’re back to the misery of existence once more. Suffice to say, in the context of Doom Metal this is a very good thing.

The second song, Silence Of The Passed, seems rather short at 8:56 minutes after this, although the content more than makes up for it. The riffs are warmer and more melodic than the previous composition, although it’s all relative of course as this still crawls along compared to most songs. Nevertheless, the atmosphere and aura is all encompassing and perfectly matched to the longer, more drawn out first track.

Each song works well as a companion piece to the other; similar enough to be recognisable as part of a whole, but differentiated enough not to repeat itself.

This release is worth the acquisition. Let Mournful Congregation into your life and let the despair run through you.

http://www.mournfulcongregation.com/

Tombs – Savage Gold (Review)

Tombs are a Metal band from the US and this is their third album.

They play a style of underground Metal that mixes Classic Metal riffs with influences from Death Metal, Hardcore and Sludge. The result is Tombs.

Another way of looking at it is to imagine a band like Doomriders only have them violated by Death Metal and covered by Sludge Metal; a rocking sensibility that’s as heavy and nasty as can be. Again, the result is Tombs.

Not many bands are playing this mix of styles; apart from Tombs there are only a handful of others, including the great Serpent Eater.

The band open with Thanatos; it has a curious sound mixing Doom-laden Post-Metal riffage with prime blast beats and throat-straining vocals. The rest of the album is equally impressive and takes aspects of these differing genre styles in lesser or greater extents to create a varied, interesting and very satisfying release.

The sound is immense and as heavy as Hell. All of the instruments are clear and identifiable and the entire recording is as sharp as a knife.

A real sense of horror and evil pervades the roots of this album; this manifests itself in the actual songs sometimes as blatant misanthropy and hatred, and others as a more nuanced disgust.

There’s a lot of longevity in this album. Start your descent into the Tombs now.

Ruins/Usnea – Split (Review)

This split is between German band Ruins and Usnea who are from the US.

Ruins are first with their track Discrimen. It starts with an eerie riff and then builds in the bass and drums with a lumbering gait like some twisted swamp creature stalking its prey. This develops into a very satisfying riff that still manages to sound a little uneasy even while it’s rocking out.

The vocals are dirty and deep, sounding like some balaclava-wearing bruiser who’s only out to hurt you. These change about halfway through to a slightly more emotive sounding semi-clean and the song becomes energised.

Ruins are a curious blending of Crust/Hardcore and Sludge with even a slight hint of Post-Metal in the mix. Either way it makes for an enticing listen and I think I’ll be looking into what else this band has done.

After Ruins we get Usnea with Only the End of the World. Usnea are great band who have released an excellent self-titled début album of Blackened Doom, which I heartily advise everyone to immediately go and get. I was especially interested to hear their half of this split as at just under 6 minutes in length it’s a lot shorter than any of the songs on their album.

Their contribution is slower and more monolithic than that of Ruins; with the song seemingly dragging itself along against the burden of time immemorial.

The chasm-like vocals seem to open wide and swallow the light. They appear like fissures under the foundations of the song and it seems like it would be so easy to fall into the blackness there. Later as the higher vocals come in the massive holes in the world are replaced with piercing shrieks that cause their own no-less fatal puncture wounds.

Usnea don’t disappoint. It may be shorter than their other work but that doesn’t stop them from making the most of the playing time and ramming it chock full with Doom delights.

A highly recommended EP. Two great songs from two great bands. Seek it out.

Interview with Nux Vomica

Nux Vomica’s latest, self-titled, album is one giant mass of quality. No need to say more than that. You should go and get it. So without further ado let’s find out a bit more…

For those who are unfamiliar with your band – introduce yourself!

I’m Just Dave, vocalist and percussionist. Not familiar with my band? Check us out here:

https://www.facebook.com/nuxvomicaband

Give us a bit of history to Nux Vomica.

We’re a punk band who learned how to play better, so now people call us “extreme metal”, which is appropriate considering how much Mountain Dew some of us drink. We started in Baltimore in about 2003, moved to Portland in 2006, had some lineup changes ending in 2008, and here we are. Our 3rd LP is out now and we have a slew of other releases. For the last year we’ve taken time off to work on other projects, and our guitarist Chris had a baby. This year we hope to get back to jamming and playing shows!

What are your influences?

This is a classic interview question, and in our case it’s so hard to answer. Here’s a very incomplete list of band members’ favourite bands: CRASS, VIOLENT FEMMES, PUBLIC ENEMY, MORNE, BLACK SABBATH, METALLICA, MISFITS, BLIND GUARDIAN, CEE-LO GREEN, DEVO, THE B-52S, PUBLIC ENEMY, DEAD MOON, THE RESIDENTS, LOW, DYSTOPIA, JUCIFER, QUEEN, MACHO MAN RANDY SAVAGE, JAY REATARD, HIS HERO IS GONE, AMEBIX, THE CURE…. I’m just stopping there.

Nux Vomica What are you listening to at the moment that you would like to recommend?

THIN LIZZY – Live and Dangerous. Damn good house cleaning music!

What did you want to achieve with your new album?

We wanted to agree on anything. Since that was obviously not gonna happen, we figured we’d cram our songs full of so many ideas that they became almost 12 to 20 minutes long. Then we had to figure out how to put it all on an album that sounded cohesive. 5 years later, it’s out!
Are you happy with how it turned out?

Yes we definitely are. I think all the hard work and time we put into it is very apparent. No part of any song went unscrutinized by us. We got very meticulous about how we wanted everything to sound, and some of us went back in the studio multiple times to re-record parts. In particular the extra percussion was an issue. Trying to do what we do live sounded like a clusterfuck, so we scaled down the extra drumming. I think it turned out great.

What can you tell us about the lyrics?

“Sanity is for the Passive” is about the idea that being labelled “insane” to me means you are reacting correctly to your surroundings in this world. Being labelled “sane” means you have been successfully assimilated into the insanity. “Reeling” is about a guy I knew who almost drank himself to death. People had to break into his house and take him to detox. Empty vodka bottles were littered everywhere. I’m pretty sure he is drinking again these days. “Choked at the Roots” is basically my theory on how people started down the path to being power mad ruiners of everything. Overall this is very dark album lyrically. Read all the lyrics here:

http://punkrockmuppet.blogspot.com/

Give us a bit of information on the songwriting process.

Usually one person has an idea of the entire song structure and brings the riffs to practice and we all pick it apart and build on it. We rarely have a plan of the length of a song, we just let it grow and if it starts getting boring we start scrapping parts and re-working others. We spend a good deal of time on transitions between parts. We like to the longer songs to flow well and remain interesting. We try to avoid the typical “this part ends, the guitars bring in the next riff, everyone else joins in” way of writing punk and crust songs. The lyrics for these newer songs were largely written at practice while the band was jamming. That was because the songs started getting too long and complicated to just bring a bunch of lyrics I wrote and fit them in like I used to.

How do you see your songs/direction developing in the future?

We have about four new songs, and we were working on more last year before we decided to take a break. The newer batch of songs are more thrashy and shorter than this LP, and people were really into them when we played em live. We also started playing a WAKE UP ON FIRE song that was never recorded. I think once we get back to jamming we’ll see where we’re going beyond that.

What’s next for Nux Vomica?

Practice! We haven’t played in a year. We need to re-learn our songs, shake off the cobwebs and get back to it. I think we’re ready.

Cheers,

Thanks!

Interview with Decembre Noir

Decembre Noir’s début album A Discouraged Believer is a polished Doom/Death Metal release, dripping with raw and bloody emotion. It has that mystery ingredient that lifts a band above the norm into the higher realms. We decided it was important to delve a bit deeper into the background of the album to find out what makes it tick…

Give us a bit of background to Decembre Noir

Hi, I’m Lars, vocalist from Decembre Noir. So I’d like to give you my reply!

We are 5 (nice) guys from East-Germany, from the region round Erfurt, the capital from Thueringia (one of the “states” from Germany). Besides our bandproject our “baby” – almost all of us have a normal life with job and own family.

What are your influences?

Katatonia, Opeth, In Mourning, October Tide, Swallow The Sun, My Dying Bride, Anathema and Paradise Lost! 😉

I characterize the style/sound of the album!

Dark + heavy = Décembre Noir!!! “A Discouraged Believer” is a fucking doom/death monster!

Our sound in the main has become some stronger and the structures of the songs who already has been available have changed to become much more better. More Death and Black metal elements and many melodies gave the songs their final outfit. Last but not least the classical influence from the cello. In private we all listen to different music and so it was used a little bit from all our musical tastes. The good combination is doing his work!

What are you listening to at the moment that you would like to recommend?

Haha, Katatonia’s “Brave Murder Day” ! I LOVE this album! Every song on this record is a Doom-Metal-Diamond! My favorite song on this album is “Brave” !!! Fucking great!!! I love it!!!

What did you want to achieve with your new album?

We want to have a solid mainstay in the metal-scene! 😉

We would like to play on the bigger festivals in summertime, lovely, but unfortunately for that year we haven’t got any acceptances. We hope it is possible next year because it must be a very special experience to play stages like With Full Force, Summer Breeze, Partysan, Hellfest or In Flammen!

Are you happy with how it turned out?

Absolutely!!! We are full of proud and very happy about our first album!!! We love this record!!!

What can you tell us about the lyrics?

So to speak we have a basic concept in our album „A discouraged believer“. You can speak about the classical main idea who you can find inside the album. Nevertheless every song is standing for itself.

It tells about the journey of a young man who is trying to find every day the meaning in his life and way. It seems he has reached a deadlock, only he is looking at the obstacles in his weekday, the typical problems which become more and more and can overtax someone and no idea how to change something, because he is get stuck somehow… So like in “Thorns”.

Our protagonist is searching for that, what we call “God”, but can’t find “Him” or any answers. That’s why he is discouraged, cause he has understood, that he can’t get any help from a “greater power” and he has to go his life way and find the meaning behind that all alone.

For instance in “Stowaway” is the theme suicide to see a chance for a new begin in life (But to forestall any critical readers or regarding this potential concerned or endangered people: Don’t panic, nobody from us will incite anybody for do that!!! Please do not misunderstand!). Much more is the thought what is standing behind that song, bother things who weigh heavily upon our mind to leave behind, finish with them and try to orientate to another direction respectively to find a better way to arrange the life.

On following song “Resurrection” the name is program It reflects the start in a new life.

For myself the album is one of my most personal things, what I have written yet in my life. Have putted lots of time and heart-blood in that album. So many people has fought in life with similar piled up problems, whether in job, relationship, family…and already we all were standing for the question, who is the meaning of all and finally comes to the result if you want life better you have to make a personal breakout and has to change by yourself a lot!

Decembre Noir Give us a bit of information on the songwriting process.

Already the songs before sounded really good and varied, but of course because of the teamwork with Ali they became much better! For us all that was an unbelievable experience! We have worked with diverse guest singers and musicians. For example one of my best friends Tele (guitar player of the German Pagan/Black metal band “Hangatyr”), who gave us some clean vocals for the songs “Decembre noir” and “Resurrection”. Alis girlfriend Katharina, who is singing with me in “Escape to the sun” a duet. Not to forget our lady on the cello, Nicole, who has shown her talent by the Darkwave band “Other Day”. Just that records with the Cello have been very interesting, for Ali too, because for him it was the first time to working with such an very nice sounded instrument. Mix a cello in your music and you will get an unbelievable atmosphere. We have experimented with Synthisounds too. You can be exciting about really great moments.

At least we are happy about the result of our job!

Well, we had a very special time and a lot of fun during recording and have to say we grew as musicians and band! We were much more glad, when Eike O. Freese (Dark Age) offered us to mix and master our album together with Ali in Hamburg! On that place a great “Thank you” to both and we hope we can mix and master our next album with Ali and Eike again!
How do you see your position in the wider Doom/Death Metal musical framework/genre?

We are a tiny star on the big metal-heaven! But we want to grow! Latest with the next album! 😉

What’s next for Decembre Noir?

Looking for gigs…Well till then we will use the free time to work on next songs. We have lots of ideas and material. Guess we will start again in autumn – with pleasure!

So you will hear from us – enjoy our album and stay heavy and dark!!!

Regards from Lars!!!

Thanks!

Abstracter – Tomb of Feathers (Review)

This is the debut album from US Sludge/Post-Metal/Doom band Abstracter.

This is a bit of a corker. Heavy, winding, aggressive but also refined when needed.

The harsh vocals are suitably caustic in nature and some slightly unusual cleans add a further layer to the music. The clean vocals offer unorthodox highlights and never take the obvious route with their melodies.

This is Post-Metal drowned in Sludge. The filth and grim disease of a forgotten underworld positively drips off the sound as it raises itself up from the dredges to pull down anyone nearby.

Unlike a lot of Post-Metal the Sludge portion of their sound means there’s very little nicety here. The band kick out the angry jams and boy do they know how to write a good riff.

The sound is earthy, organic and complements the rawness of the band extremely well.

Abstracter are a focused singularity of woe and rage, compressed so tightly that not even light can escape once they have it in their clutches. These songs are engaging and absorbing. How is it that this album wasn’t immediately brought to my attention the moment it was birthed by whatever unspeakable ceremony carried it forth?

This is a work of talented individuals who have made who-knows-what kind of bargains to have the much sought after ability to channel something very special into these three tunes. Each song has its own story and manages to be both a journey and a destination in its own right.

If they’re this good already in their very short career, who knows what they will accomplish next? I can’t wait to find out.

Serpentine Path – Emanations (Review)

This is the second album from US Doom Metal band Serpentine Path.

This is heavy. This is very heavy indeed. End of review.

Just kidding. But seriously…this is one heavy album.

This is Doom-laden Sludge Metal with a healthy Old-School Death Metal influence that recalls the slowest of the Old-School masters at their dirgy best.

The band themselves have been kidnapped from all manner of high profile bands and know their stuff. In this context it’s no surprise that Emanations is such a winner. Considering their pedigree it would be a bigger surprise if this album had fallen flat on its face. As if.

The dark atmosphere and colossal riffs seem to fall from a great height to blanket the landscape and crush everything in sight. The leads and musical refrains are splashes of melodic colour in an otherwise pitch black landscape designed to emphasise the fact that all hope is in fact lost and these glimpses of better times are things that you’ll never have again.

Although these nuances of colour are peripheral concerns in the context of the larger song structure as Serpentine Path specialise in a brutal brand of Sludge/Doom that pummels the listener into submission more than lulling them into despair. The fact that these nuances exist however just gives the band more depth than they might otherwise have without them.

The vocals are pretty deep; they don’t reach the guttural lows of pure Death Metal although they do come close. They fit the music better than cookie-monster vocals would though and have an appropriately atavistic quality to them that goes perfectly with the mood the band create.

The album has a strong sound that isn’t overproduced and brings out the best of the gargantuan riffs. I could listen to this over and over again. And I will. For some time. Surely that’s the very definition of a successful album?

Walk down the Serpentine Path. You might not know where it leads but you’re damn sure in for a good journey.

Primitive Man/Hexis – Split (Review)

Primitive Man are from the US and play Sludgy Doom. On this release they have teamed up with Danish Crusty Black Metallers Hexis. Each band contributes one song, each about 8 minutes in length.

This is my first time hearing Primitive Man, but I’ve heard good things about them and am not disappointed.

When Getting High Is Not Enough starts off crushingly slow and heavy with vocals so deep and dark they seem to swallow all light. After a while the bass adopts a crawling pose while the guitars transcend to an almost Post-Metal ethereality before falling back to earth with a weighty riff. This soon breaks out into an unexpected frenzy of speed and the vocals become higher and much more vicious.

The band have this ability to play slow, fast or chuggy-as-hell while still retaining their own identity and a sense of filthy, Sludge-fuelled blackness pervades everything. The song is a victory and I am left wanting to hear more from this impressive band.

Hexis are a band who I am very familiar with as they have produced some very strong material over the years, particularly their recent full length Abalam.

Their track Excrucio is a weighty beast that has their trademark Blackened guitar walls with shredding vocals seemingly buried just underneath the enormous tide of distortion. Hexis manage to write very emotive songs where the guitars are the main stars of the show and the vocals and everything else are their to support them and help to accentuate how rock solid they sound.

Hexis have struck a winning formula with their sound and Excrucio is no exception.

This is a great showcase for two talented bands that offer a lot for the discerning metal fan who wants something a bit more from their listening.

Eyehategod – Eyehategod (Review)

Eyehategod are from the US and this is their fifth album of Sludge.

Okay, so I’m not going to hide it – I absolutely love Eyehategod. Ever since first getting Take as Needed for Pain 20 years ago (!) I’ve been hooked, and they’re one of my all time favourite bands. I say this in the interests of full disclosure, because if you’re looking for a fully objective and impartial review then you’d best move along as I’m so excited about this album it’s ridiculous!

As soon as you press play it’s just so instantly familiar and welcoming, at least to someone who’s comfortable with this style of crawling Metal. Their trademark swampy sound that has spawned literally thousands of imitators is recognisable straight away and it becomes rapidly apparent that the band have lost none of the skill and talent that they’ve had over the course of their long career.

It would be easy to doubt whether this was going to be any good as it’s been a whopping 14 years since their last album, (Confederacy of Ruined Lives), but as any true believer knows these are false doubts, as this album, quite frankly, is fucking brilliant.

The songs are fantastic and the band effortlessly create That Sound that helped spawn and shape the Sludge genre with such ease that each track slides out of the speakers in a haze of murky guitars, Southern-fried riffs, squalling feedback and snarling vocals.

Eyehategod have come to show the pretenders and the wannabes how it’s done.

This is an essential record for any Metal fan. I can’t recommend this enough. Immediately go out and get everything that Eyehategod have ever done. This is important.

Flawless.