Live review - Loserpalooza 13 with Sonance, Spider Kitten, Ghast, Atomck, Pohl, Homoh.

Here's something a little different from me today. I was lucky enough to attend a show last Saturday put on by one of the fine gentleman from the mighty Spider Kitten, a band that is fast rising in the UK heavy scene and who have previously received a very favorable review here on Heavy Planet for their album "Cougar Club."

This was the third annual Loserpalooza event held in Cardiff, the capitol city of Wales, put on to showcase some of the cream of the crop of doom, sludge and black metal bands hailing from the South West of the UK and the line up of bands on the night chosen by the event organizer and guitarist Chi from Spider Kitten was of a highly impressive standard with each band playing excellent sets to a venue packed full of appreciative doom metal heads.    

                             

Things kicked off fairly early with HOMOH taking the stage with an already busy venue of adoring fans and new converts. Complete with singer/guitarist Gareth with his faced daubed in black face paint, HOMOH tore through a disgustingly filthy set of sludge in a similar style as EYEHATEGOD. They played some older tracks from their "DEMOH EP" with a few new ones played which showed an interesting development in their sound which seemed more raw and stripped down than their previous work but was no less eye gouging and brain fucking. Despite the guitarist having problems with his guitar strap he fared very well indeed and proceeded to bash out riffs with his axe raised aloft in true black sludge heroisms. I was very impressed with HOMOH's live set as they are a band with a great stage presence and with new recordings in the pipe line and reworkings of tracks from their DEMOH EP, HOMOH are sure to be a band that will make a lasting mark on the sludge metal scene everywhere.

HOMOH

HOMOH BANDCAMP

After a short break for toots and refills of ale it was time for Pohl from Bristol UK to impress the rapidly growing crowd of hungry doom and sludge lovers. Previously a 2 piece they now have a bassist which, although they were already heavy with a gargantuan sound, he is a welcome addition to the band. Pohl's set was tight and full of fast paced and incendiary drumming with fat riffs and song structures that brought to my mind Big Business and The Melvins. Pohl never fail to impress and by the end of their set everyone in attendance was fully fired up and eager for the next priests of heavy to step up and preach the gospel of riff.

POHL BANDCAMP

Atomck were up next and this 3 piece ripped through a set of fierce and face melting grindcore and powerful noise with a very energetic vocalist utilizing much of the venue and even climbing onto the bar to shout harsh howls and guttural screams into the mic. Atomck are firm favorites in the South West metal scene and have played numerous gigs over the years and it shows. They are fast, noisy, aggressive, heavy and down right fucking balls kicking loud. I felt pretty exhausted by the end of their set but there was no way I was going to bail half way through the night so after a couple more ales and a few tokes I was feeling well enough oiled to hang around to witness the inevitable storm of doom lined up for the rest of the evening.

ATOMCK BANDCAMP

Ghast soon followed with a set of the doomiest of doom and furiously blistering black metal. It was a blend that worked very well and had everyone present nodding their heads in metal appreciation. This 3 piece from Swansea, Wales, know black metal as well as they do doom and blend the 2 genres seamlessly. Ghast looked very at home on stage and played a range of tracks that kept me interested and wanting to hear more by the time their slot was up. The crowd loved every second and showed their appreciation with loud roars, claps and whistles, satisfied that Ghast's chapter in the Loserpalooza book was firmly scribed and will not be forgotten any time soon.

GHAST FACEBOOK

Another short break for booze, buds and banter and then it was time for Spider Kitten to blast out their pleasingly heavy and slow and low doom with a set consisting of tracks that I have not heard from them before and none that appeared on their previous release "Cougar Club" so it was an honor to hear the tracks before they are put to record. Spider Kitten's sound has moved on somewhat from their last release with some tracks having long atmospheric and minimal moments of experimental doom that reminded me a little of Harvey Milk's work and sometimes The Melvins but the inimitable Spider Kitten sound and their dark bluesy vibes were still very much there. Their set was ground shaking and brain crushingly heavy and their riffs mouth watering and mesmerizing and had everyone, myself especially, captivated by the vast waves of low end and the high precision drumming from drummer Chris West (ex bassist of Taint). With nearly every member of the band taking their turn to sing vocals, Spider Kitten are a band that work together in an almost darkly spiritual unison with doom riffs so expertly executed it is no wonder that Spider Kitten are turning many heads in the UK doom scene their way right now. Big things are coming for this band and I and many others are very excited to hear what they have in store for us next.

SPIDER KITTEN

SPIDER KITTEN BANDCAMP

Finally it was time for Bristol born Sonance to step up to the wood and they proceeded to lay everyone flat on their backs with a set that was blinding in its creativity and mind blowing in its execution. Their doom is as heart felt as any of the bands that played on the night and with members on the floor and level with the tightly gathered crowd of maniacal doom brains it was like a 60's happening but with more hair and more black and more swearing. One guitarist at the end of their set crouched down with his guitar on the floor while he teased out beautifully chaotic noise and the rest of the band joined him in evoking a monolithic wall of doom that caused red eyes and tears of heavy joy in all. There is a post metal tinge to their sound but for the most part they were doom and sludge all the way with the doom surge only being broken by moments of deeply atmospheric and introspective drone wanderings until the spine folding explosion of doom and sludge lay a final waste to an already wasted crowd.

SONANCE

SONANCE

SONANCE BANDCAMP

Loserpalooza is a truly brilliant one day annual banquet of heavy music which any of our readers would appreciate and enjoy and with such a high quality of bands chosen for the show, the south west of the UK proves itself to be a veritable hotbed of amazing doom/sludge/post and black metal bands made up from many of the metal warriors that dwell in this particular corner of England and Wales.

Here, wrap you ears around this compilation put together by Spider Kitten guitar and vocalist and Loserpalooza organizer Chi to hear what I'm talking about.

Thanks and hails to all bands and all those involved in putting on an unforgettable night of true doom worship.

Sunday Sludge: PUS

This is the absolute worst fucking time of year. Wake up and pull back the curtain. You'll get smacked square in the temple with bleak skies, icy roads, and the understanding that you'll spend the next six weeks rising from bed to six-degree temperatures and coated car windows. Shit, even football season seems like a high school memory. Plug through February and you'll find March to offer little solace, as every drunk asshole drinking green beer tries putting his tongue in your girl's mouth. I'm gonna throw up just thinking about what's promised by these next few weeks.

I had to dig back to 2012 to find the perfect complement to my emotional shittiness this Sunday. I went looking for trouble, and I found PUS. These assholes from South Wales blended a perfect lo-fidelity mutation that goes down smoother than a bowl o' snot and hotter than the world's cheapest whiskey. Produced by and featuring members of Sunday Sludge darlings Spider Kitten, PUS spew this six-track debut EP and refuse to clean up a goddamn thing. The band's grim thickness is unsurpassed, while the absence of overproduction gives the disc's underbelly a creepy credibility.

Perhaps you should've stayed outta your stepmom's dresser. These six horse pill horror-fests move in every direction and buzz-up the back of your brain quicker than a blast of airplane glue. The riffage of opener Colossus erodes skin and bone, morphing into splintered licks that parade behind a muddy mask of evil. Pressing through a wet wasteland, fears are only slightly eased as the band seeps toward the doom-heavy intro of The Black Swordsman. Track 2 sways and slays beneath a distant-torture "vokill," buzzing like mutant fly-children. The not-so-easy rolling sludge horror owes a debt to AL's super-heavy low-end, which is as dense as it gets. I feel better already.

I love a shrill feedback intro, provided it's short-lived and leads to a contrasting, low-burning attack of mental anguish. PUS repeatedly administer just enough ear-screech to barely induce my cringes. The steaming cracks of Image of the Dredd Law steadily rise toward hollow echoes, remaining cavernous and true to form. A failure to contain oneself is hardly a character flaw, and the misery herein is mutually-assured. Holding some of the album's slowest sludge moments is a high compliment, and this shit has quickly become too thick to escape.

And who says a Welsh sludge act can't make you laugh? You'd need a lyrics sheet to fully grasp Your Mother's Arsehole, but it likely got burned up in your buddy's basement. Crawling and clawing through thorns is barely half the story, as this steamer pulls off the wheels to escape fragmented guitar. The shrapnel pelts your skin anyway, and you can't help but laugh as you spend the next few days picking at scabs. And hey, don't lose sight of what's happening around you. A Cross For All To Bear is a quick-fisted bully with a nose for paranoia. Doom unfolds amid hair-split guitar, but the sound is far too huge to contain. PUS say fuck it, slow down, and sneer at your gaping mudhole. Oh, are those pain meds kicking in? Good luck swatting at nothing.

You won't know what to make of the reverb-soaked closer. PUS is a heavily-distorted cloud of slow black smoke that trembles and warbles at a distance you feel is safe. Fucking forget it. Rob and John gnash at one another as rhythms comfortably observe from the love seat. That ominous howl that creeps about is simply taking steps toward defining the band, but there's really no clear categorization. Army-crawling toward a false shelter, the crusty crunch grows frightening and incredibly executed. A winter hymnal closes out the EP to establish a complete juxtaposition of everything that just bloodied your broken body.

It's difficult to hear this in your living room, your car, or your neighbor's garage. Here exists an expansive shroud of gloom that is normally reserved for news stories about the third world. Your walls are too thin to contain this sonic dread, but they also can't protect you from the churning evil PUS have promised. Call it a mindfuck, but your time is better served seeking forgiveness than truth. This sludgy trip won't end well, and that's your only certainty. Don't let the weather get you down. PUS do a pretty good job all on their own.

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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: Spider Kitten - "Cougar Club"

Here again, I'm left with my jaw open and my dick in my hand. As the year winds down, we tend to pack and seal our definitive declarations a little too early, eager to tuck in every corner and finally call a spade a spade. What's good is good, what's not is forgotten, and what's ahead is given the nod over what's happening right in front of us. So when I've gotta slam the brakes and question why greatness went unnoticed, it throws everything else into question along with it.

Let's be fair; Spider Kitten's Cougar Club isn't being officially released until January, so I'm not talking about missing this album. Nuclear Dog got to me in time, smacking my face with a cold hand and doing little more than tucking the tape into my denim jacket. But take a look back at Spider Kitten's prolific, tireless catalog and you'll see what I'm getting at. These burners have spun, by my count, more than twenty releases over the course of the last decade. WHAT?! So I'll backtrack a tad, but this current release is gonna be hard to turn off.

The hot, eerie corridor-drone that opens Twin Obscenities hardly spoils what lays ahead on Cougar Club. Between the buzzes and crushes, the ridiculously heavy drops lumber and stagger alongside an unparalleled two-ply vocal haunt. Slow, thick, and surprisingly melodic, the dark doom crust begins to set and the balance of trudge and cool-panned guitar snags your ponytail and never loosens the grip on your senses. Atmospheres aren't firmly cemented, though. These guys have more than a few arrows in their quiver. 

Sci-Fi guitar repetitions summon 2001: A Space Odyssey's Hal on Burdened, later utilizing a stoner-sludge buzz to lull and coax us. Remaining fuzzier than your mom's top lip, this cruiser shifts moods and enters a spacey jam. Guitar shavings splinter, Chris weaves a web of beats, and we're privy to a smoke-soaked extended lunch in a high school parking lot. What follows is a slow unroll of the doom carpet on a cover of Dark World by Saint Vitus. Sludge plods and pauses, vocals echo, and guitar honors with sacrilege in a burned night sky. Throwback, vintage, whatever. It's also well-realized and stamped with Spider Kitten's brand (and likely Wino's seal of approval).

Well, we find reprieve on Time Takes Its Toll, less an intermission and more a breath of clean, countryside air. Where the bulk of Cougar Club teems and sticks, this acoustic strum is stripped down and cheekily hopeful. I couldn't help but adopt an Orange Goblin-hires-Thom Yorke perspective; no pretense, increasingly unsettling with subsequent listens, and undeniably relaxing. If Chi's sitting under a tree and strumming a cracked wooden box called a guitar, I doubt he hasn't noticed the hillside peppered with rattles and cackles. I said "Goddamn!"

If you're still standing, Cougar Club's title-track closer is packed with head-nodding fuzz, picking up progressive steam with buoyance and catharsis. The vocals here are less presented and more extracted, an almost mid-life Isis (oh, you like that?) in a hazy, uncertain drift. Licks turn skyward, drums fall in line, but Al's bass remains dangerously low. A synth organ suspension screams Pink Floyd's Welcome to The Machine, fronting a hovering tapestry of sonic progressions. Crushing and crunching toward disc's end, the funeral sludge/doom underlayment blankets a chaotic cougar hunt. And the album's final moment is an exercise of staggering sustain.

I know there's another month to go before we close the books on 2012. Oh, and that Mayan calendar bullshit is right around the corner, so maybe we won't even get to usher in a sea of doomed resolutions. But 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. And it's embarrassing to admit I'm starting at the end.

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