After my review of Cough's new album, Ritual Abuse, I decided to follow the sludge theme and continue on to Clagg. This one will be short and sweet, because everything that I said about Cough can be said about Clagg. Lord of The Deep is another foray into the sludge/doom style that I don't really like. The music is amazing - some of the best doom I've heard in a while - but the vocals are horrible. While Cough was a mix of growly and high-pitched and whiny, Clagg is all growl. And this is something that I cannot partake nor overlook.One of my friends listens pretty much solely to NWOAHM and death metal, and when I asked how he could to listen to the vocals, his response was that he doesn't listen to the vocals at all. He listens to the music itself. I am not like him, I can't figure out to separate one from the other. So for me, bands like Cough and Clagg have their legs knocked out right from the get-go. I feel like I can't give a good review of these artists, and those of like-mind, but I also think that I need to; to offer people of my tastes (or at least close to them) the view of what to expect. I am at a crux with all of this, but I have to say what I feel needs to be said.
Along those lines the music of Lord of The Deep is simply superb. It is doom metal as I love it - dark, slow, dreary - everything I love within the genre. The vocals though...the vocals. They are abhorrent; a testament to the wrong way to do things (again in my opinion, I know lots of people who think if there is no growl, it's not heavy metal).
Again, Lord of The Deep has some amazing qualities to it, the vocals just outweigh the good. I like cleaner-sounding music; it doesn't have to all be operatic or even fully understandable. I like acts like Snot and Kingdom of Sorrow (which seem to counteract everything I am writing here, but it works for some reason), so I can accept a bit of leeway in the vocal style within my music. However, sometimes it is just too much, and this is one of those times. If Clagg were to get a new singer/style they could be amazing, but as is...
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Now you listen here motherfucker, Scooter (Clagg vocalist) is the Luciano Pavarotti of the stoner doom genre. His vocals are like the icing on the riff-laden gâteaux of Clagg's musical palette. You want cleaner-sounding music? You're way off target here. Clagg is filth. Stoner/sludge/doom is filth. They are the scum of the heavy music genre. You want something clean, go listen to the garbage on Century Media or Nuclear Blast or whatever. Snot? Are you serious? That band whose singer died in a car crash back in the late 90s? Quit living in the past man.
ReplyDeleteJesus fucking Christ.
I didn't quite get the Snot reference either. But in defense of The Klepto, I understand what he is saying. That type of vocal isn't for everyone. Personally, I think Clagg is badassss!
ReplyDeleteClagg are better at doom than you are at reviewing, if you don't like metal vocals go and listen to your beiber records you retard!
ReplyDeleteHey I said there was nothing wrong with the music, it was some amazing doom, I'm just not all about guttural vocals. I like the golden sound of sludge, when it was doom verses with thrash/crossover choruses. This new generation of sludge meaning any stoner sound as long as the singer has that guttural style isn't for me.
ReplyDeleteI preambled the article saying it wasn't my style of choice, just my opinion. And I dropped the Snot reference (along with Kingdom of Sorrow) to bring up that I like some bands that scream or whatever you want to call it, but those groups are few and far between.
You all putting really angry responses to my opinion is quite funny for me. I hate when people claim there is only one 'true' style of metal. Vocals range all over the place, and I like a little of each, just not this. Get over it