EP Review - Host by Wren

London sludge doomsters Wren are about to unleash a truly devastating EP that all darkened fans of heavy, uncomfortable noise are going to love.  The four-piece like things to be down-tuned and brutally bleak, with riffs crushing your spine and vocals spewing down your throat; it’s not a record for the feint-hearted.

The record opens with ‘Stray’, an eight-minute series of world crushing riffs that follow no typical time pattern, constantly keeping you on your toes as the songs bounces from one riff to the next, all overshadowed by the barren aggressive vocals that will haunt you long after they’ve seemingly gone. The songs on Host often vary between moments of suffocating inclusion and total alienation, but you still become captivated by every riff. The harshness of the cacophony of riffs on the end of ‘Stray’ completely steals your soul, ‘No Séance’ reminds us of the brilliance of sludgers Rhoda with its chugging riffs completely destroyed by the angriest of scowls. ‘Ossuary’ is the highlight on the EP, as the gentle scales of the song act as a false safety before the core sound of the band brings you hurtling back towards the floor at full throttle with the most menacing of riffs they can muster, and it’s a sound which lets you thrash, before their post-rock/metal style vibes carry you along their story before ultimately fucking you over again: It’s a stunning listen.

Wren impose themselves on you like a hammer to the throat! Host is a deeply dark, menacing, brutal, heavy, and engaging listen, and our dark dank souls love it.

Host is being released on the ever exciting Holy Roar records and will be out at the end of April.

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Album Review: 'Rise of the Dawncrusher' by Slabdragger

Either by design or one hell of a stroke of nominative determinism, the London-based 3-piece that are Slabdragger sound every bit of how their name suggests. This is music to move Stonehenge to... But this will not be news to fans of the band's previous album ‘Regress', but rather will cause rabid salivation at the knowledge that 'Rise of the Dawncrusher' - the bands latest full length on Holy Roar Records - is out now.

On a cosmic trip of sludgy-doom, with black metallic shimmers and a punk-like delivery, this pony has many tricks. And the hour-long 5 track record is packed-full of ideas. What excites me about Slabdragger with this record is that it's never formulaic, and as a listener you don't feel there's a roadmap for where they're taking you. 'Progressive' may be seen as a dirty word by some, but this album's inventiveness demands further listens which uncovers elements you don't pick up on first time round.

Opener 'Mercenary Blues' lures you in with a Sabbath-esque groove, before heavy section preceding heavier section... It's a challenge to keep anyone engaged across 12 minutes in today's click-happy world, but this is master craftsmen at work. The other standout track is the brooding ‘Dawncrusher Rising’, which over 15 minutes builds and soars like the awakening of a behemoth from the deepest darkest depths of hell.

It seems the five years plotting their follow up to ‘Regress' has served Slabdragger well. Here's hoping the response to this album will get the band back in the studio a little faster next time round...

Bandcamp | Facebook | Holy Roar Records

EP Review: ‘Cold’ by OHHMS

Covered with bruises must be the arms of the quintet that make up OHHMS, from continuous pinching injuries sustained during their first 12 months of existence. All part of the plan, no doubt. Having been picked up by Holy Roar Records after hearing their demo, to releasing their debut EP ‘Bloom’ in 2014, festival appearances at Temples, Arc Tan Gent, Fear and Hevy, plus shows with Conan, Earthmass and Slabdragger, they’ve also found time to record their follow-up EP ‘Cold’.

Describing themselves as "Progressive. Doom. Slow. Noise. Animal. Rights.” ‘Cold’ delivers two meandering beast-like tracks of heavy progressive doom over 30-odd minutes. First up is ‘The Anchor’, which highlights the band’s boundless creativity, opening with a slow atmospheric intro with bold work from vocalist Paul Waller, to an expansive heavy middle section with guitars and drums in unison, through to a fuzzed-out closing in homage to 70’s psychedelia. ‘You can’t sink us’ is the roar, and on this evidence I’m not one to argue.  

Right... onto track 2. ‘Dawn of the Swarm’ picks up from where ‘The Anchor’ ends. From a dream-like Pink Floydian intro, the track builds to an instrumented assault of riffs and vocals, to suddenly disperse leaving you feeling like you’ve been pushed off a cliff... Only to feel saved, bashed about a bit and redeemed before the track ends. Once again OHHMS are bending conventions with their prog-like mentality packaged in a shiny doom wrapper. 

‘Cold' is like a sonic wormhole, you never know where you're going to arrive at next. And that's what’s captivating. OHHMS are on a mission to expand your mind and keep you guessing every step of the way. And their song-craft and creativity will ensure they continue to carve their own path, and separate themselves from their often one-dimensional peers.

Follow the band - Facebook | Bandcamp

Check out ‘Cold’ below:

LP Review - Bongripper/Conan Split 12"

How low can low go? Ever since I first heard Electric Wizard's "Come My Fanatics" I thought that was it, heavy music could not get any heavier beyond that album. Then they released "Dopethrone" and the bar was lowered even more. Surely that was it? El Wiz pushed low as low as low could go. I was wrong though. I later discovered a band called Floor featuring Steve Brookes in his pre-Torche days on guitar. Floor put out an album featuring the heaviest tones I had heard put to record. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. The 'bomb drop tuning" as coined by Brookes proved that a player could down tune a guitar very very low indeed and so achieve a sound that physically rattles your guts. The low-end tone is more than just a listening experience, it is a physical sensation that seems to massage the listener's insides. Whenever I listen to extremely heavy music I have this sensation deep within in me that is more than physical. It is as if a portal opens within me and I am sucked within myself and plunged into the lowest fathoms of the sub-atomic universe.

With this release the low-end tone is taken to new extremes in a 12" that is sure to twist your guts and shake your bones and suck you into the abyss of pulverising weight. To celebrate their upcoming UK tour, American instrumental doom legends Bongripper team up with the UK's rapidly rising heroes of heavy Conan, for a split LP to be released on vinyl 22nd April from Holy Roar Records. And oh my, what heavy heavy (yep, heavy x2) soul crushing sounds are on offer here.

Conan's slice "Beheaded" is 17 minutes and 3 seconds of slow, low and nether-worldly doom metal. From the outset tribal drums drift upwards towards you from the silent depths that bring with them a mighty tone of ultra-low end that slams you full bodily leaving you prostrate in worship of the heavy. Huge droned out riffs pour forth in a tsunami of devastatingly crushing tones as shouted chanted vocals echo from deep below. Conan are the epitome of heavy as declared loud and proud in this slow paced monster of a galaxy devourer. The walls of my house are shaken with plaster falling from my ceiling and my intestines vibrate to the frequencies causing me to want to shit urgently. My brain cells rattle as I nod slowly along to the pounding drums that drive this track forward with each bass and guitar hit sounding even more heavy than the last. On it drones in thick waves of sludge and crunch while a buzzed and searing guitar lick adds to the deliberately drawn out affair on display. I am caught in a catatonic trance as I dribble spit onto my shirt and the sensations that whirl through me are a satisfying guttural massage, which Conan so graciously give in this veritable behemoth of a track.


The mighty Bongripper follow with "Zero Talent" which opens with a dark atmospheric ambient intro and the sound of a robotic mosquito buzzing through my head. There is an obvious electronic music influence in this prelude reminding me of an intro to some dark Drum and Bass tune, that is until the fucking immense weight of crushing riffs falls upon me and I am left prostrate for the second time in under 30 minutes. The riffs are delivered in that unmistakable Bongripper style with drums that bash out the huge and infectious riffs with pace changes that build the tension of extreme doom to a point where the track unleashes some frantic and urgent riffage that then plunges into crushingly down-tuned bomb drop tones. The ante is upped (or rather lowered) then as a huge wall of sound takes this track into even heavier dimensions. This is "off the hook", to use a popular yoot term, with a production that is just something out of this world, it being so damn heavy but still very clean in the mix.This track hearkens back to some of Bongrippers' earlier work but with an evolution in their sound that shows Bongripper are a band that are not afraid to push themselves forward.

I will be attending one of the shows of the Bongripper and Conan UK tour so look out for a review of that in the coming weeks.

BONGRIPPER / CONAN / HOLY ROAR RECORDS