Sunday Sludge: Best of 2012

These year-end lists can make you crazy. What you won't see on my forearm are the half-dozen band names I've carved out entirely. Great as they may have been, I had to cut it to twelve. Shit, I fooled myself into thinking I could pare it down to ten. But there was simply too much great sludge metal slung my way in 2012. Whether it's straight southern thickness, sped-up filth, or dusty bounce laced with sprawling post-metal drift, sludge is more expansive than you thought and too frequently overlooked.

I couldn't bring myself to rank these from 1 to 12. Some days I find Fistula's angst to be the essential middle-finger to my boss. Other days I catch myself dissecting Canto III Inferno by In the Company of Serpents. And had EYEHATEGOD spewed eight or ten more tracks that sounded as good as New Orleans is the New Vietnam, they may have shot right to number one (what a great fucking song). As it stands, these are the twelve Sunday Sludge-featured albums I returned to most frequently.


-(16)- - Deep Cuts From Dark Clouds

Jerue's bark is more symptomatic of choice than struggle. The only match for this is the low and vile whir of rhythm that's never out of death's reach. Without tricks and without fluff, -(16)- tread the broken ground abandoned by their contemporaries. Ubiquitous pain has evolved into flared indignation, and the resulting sound is -(16)- at their greasy pinnacle.







Fistula - Northern Aggression

Hit the e-brake all you want, but Fistula's in full control. The plod balances the shred and the fury lines every note with napalm. The tempo shifts suggest a bi-polar, manic, borderline personality glitch, but nobody will raise a red flag. The sleeping giant you poked with a stick never woke. Instead, Fistula again showed up without warning. Your skin is bubbling, your left eye is gone, and you're drooling as you sift through the soil looking for loose teeth.





Grizzly - Fear My Wrath

We're rarely met with material this overtly homicidal and self-satisfied. Lyrics can be oft-considered sludge's afterthought, shouted or muffled or buried in brilliant rotting moss. Grizzly's vocal delivery on Fear My Wrath perfectly ensnares listeners by snagging a fish hook in your lip, rubbing your skin raw with sandpaper, and leaving spit-trails of hostility dripping from your hair.






Sonance - Like Ghosts

The forty-two minutes on these two tracks breathe and haunt more like an undying memory, surging and waning beyond your wishes. These ghosts are seemingly within you, not around you. You can compartmentalize the chills, but the lucidity is never sealed off. And when you've been lulled to comfort and feel a cool sigh can be enjoyed, you're jarred by descending sludge terror.






Spider Kitten - Cougar Club

...After eleven months of sifting through some pretty incredible offerings from some pretty accomplished acts, it's difficult to find many that are this complete and this proficient. Cougar Club is thick with mood, heavy on variation, and thoroughly stung with riffs and rhythms that'll knock you flat. Moving forward, waving back, and setting the knob to "simmer" is just the beginning for Spider Kitten.





haarp - Husks

Planting their feet as sludge metal gods, haarp take their time trimming the fat and let the truth simmer. Between the sludge barrages and atmospheric back roads is tempered, expertly-timed black gold. The band's proficient but patient approach is lined with beautifully rich and vile vision. Husks isn't merely another NOLA sludge-metal record; it's a sonic catapult for a band wholly deserving of every accolade they accrue.






HUSH - Untitled I

On Untitled I, despair clouds every luxury. Every happiness is whittled and boiled. The sludge-doom truths pique our senses, but the vexed lyricism here serves as effective a weapon. The songs are strongly-structured, the shifts are well-placed. Ultimately, the songs are smart and despondent, truly questioning where we're headed. Blame doesn't need to be assigned because you know you're guilty. I suppose the first step is admitting you've got a problem. The second step is listening to HUSH.





In The Company Of Serpents - Self-titled

Down-tuned plod melds with Netzorg's withdrawn but enticing vocals. Burying licks under a canvas of fog has the track feeling like a stumble through a misty hamlet, buzzing and grinding like your old man's dusty table saw that he's too drunk to use. What's surprising for this sludge, however, is its groove. The palpable, nod-inducing rhythm is what sets apart ITCOS from their sludge-doom contemporaries. Under an electric blanket, the band's sludgy plod melts into a stoner groove, resulting in some pretty cool sounds.





Pigs - You Ruin Everything

Spin it, say your prayers, and hope your hands don't shake so badly when you wake up.  Pigs aren't gonna cure your ills or pull you from the dry well, they're gonna jump down there with you.  And by the time the police show up, each of these songs is stuck on your tongue.








Rabbits - Bites Rites 

Bites Rites challenges and antagonizes via immediate, in-your-face hardcore bullying. Rabbits are direct and all ambiguity is checked at the rotting, unhinged door. You don't have to wallow in the mud; sometimes you need to jump in and throw it at others. And if Rabbits don't manage to catch your attention with flaming piles of loose earth, they'll just gnash their teeth and rip off your face.






Rodha - Raw

Employing just five tracks of melded design, Rodha should have little trouble finding a rabid fan-base.  That a band can so strongly assert it's mettle on what they call a demo is nothing short of stunning, and their generosity is a testament to the confidence they have in themselves and one another.  These tracks are heavy, smart, well-structured, and dirty enough for sludge-o-philes to instantly fall into submission.






Make - Trephine

In Metal Songwriting 101, Trephine would be the curriculum's cornerstone. Your head is gonna swell and your skull is gonna pound, but MAKE's death rattle has unparalleled warmth and voluminous complexity.Trephine is the perfect ailment and the perfect antidote, complete with enough syrup to dull the edge.

Sunday Sludge: Rabbits - "Bites Rites"

We all let our nerves get the best of us. We all tend to grow impatient now and then. I simply didn't have it on this Sunday. Whatever it is that awakens me before the sun, sending me out into the world to find the slowest, filthiest, most drawn-out breed of taxing dirge the misty morning offers simply wasn't there today. I needed caffeine. I needed something quick, something to the point, and something uncompromisingly jarring. I went looking for trouble... and I found Rabbits.

Portland's sludge-noise punks will release their hardly-sophomoric second effort, Bites Rites, on September 18th. Wasting no time with niceties and hardly scrubbing clean their blood-matted fur, Rabbits here spew nine brazen, scathing attacks to the consciousness on a hot, rusted rail. Blending the blistering rhythms of punk with sludge's muddled undergrowth, this trio makes their case for 2012's most vitriolic piss & vinegar-stained album by stripping down to animosity's bare ass and pointing middle fingers at every turn.

From the numbing buzz of We and Zoo to the groovy, sand-coated Husker Dü-cover What's Going On, Bites Rites pulses with more angst and strange chaos than a Harmony Korine film. Zoo is a 2nd gear hum-fest, dragging its knuckles on cracked Tensionhead-era Nick Oliveri vocals. Riffs sail beyond the steady dirge and this opener gives birth to isolation and division, electrically mocking unity throughout. Noise pairs with stoner-sludge on the hovering Fight Right. KG's drums are barely-controlled chaos, countering the steady shuffle of bruised feet. Rabbits warp to a cloud of wet noise, while these screams will surely invade your already-drubbed psyche.

Dipping hillbilly metal in a tub of thrash, the hollow Move Her Body is quick, frightening, and downright filthy. The hardly detectable Southern influence is more clearly flexed on the slow-rolling 2_35, a Spacemen homage. The track screeches and plugs with the urgency of a homeless sloth, characterized by noisy warble. Drunk, bored, and increasingly pissed, the blips and pops roll downhill until they catch themselves in a slow fire.

A scathing drone grinds at your senses on Suck It or Blow. The sarcasm of "What do you think about life, boy?" is laid thick and sticky, building and swelling on an expansive churn. The album's loaded with overt aggression at every turn, however. Screeching and stomping on the indulgently orgasmic Lame in Vain, a drunk townie contends "Everyone knows you're so lame!" after being kicked out of a Friday night kegger. Aggression and anger come with this package deal. And the most sludge-laden moments appear on Meth Valley 99, a choppy and rhythmically alarming dig toward hell. Guitars slice and poke, eventually slowing toward a bad trip of unsettling, drowning screams. Ugh.

There's a brief but excellent moment of clarity here, though. On Mars II echoes chains, breaking a vacant corridor's eerie industrial drone. The broken halogen lights will slowly drive you insane, fading to an empty earth and even emptier existence. And moving toward the aforementioned What's Going On, Rabbits enter groove and harmony more than ever. Strangely melodic beneath the knotted stomach pangs, the inconceivable patterns of noise-chaos are awesomely spacey and caked in shit. This nod forms quite the closer, warm and trickling down your leg as Bob Mould proudly looks on.

You won't find the progressively unfolding layers of smoothed-out soundscapes here. Bites Rites challenges and antagonizes via immediate, in-your-face hardcore bullying. Rabbits are direct and all ambiguity is checked at the rotting, unhinged door. You don't have to wallow in the mud; sometimes you need to jump in and throw it at others. And if Rabbits don't manage to catch your attention with flaming piles of loose earth, they'll just gnash their teeth and rip off your face. And that rabies vaccination won't do shit!

Lineup:

Sethro - Vocals/Guitar
Booze - Vocals/Guitar
KG - Drums

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