Sunday Sludge: Lavagoat - "Weird Menace"

Sunday mornings demand we not overthink things. I've still got last night's regrets dripping from the corner of my mouth, so I can't handle squeaky clean production and cock-metal flare. My skin is raw and my skull is buzzing, so let's find something to delay the ennui of lawn duties. This is why I applaud bands like Saskatoon's Lavagoat. They don't fuck around with knobs and buttons to cheapen things through edits and filters; their sound is scraped from a damp, sooty concrete floor and directly bottled for consumption.

The band's latest EP, Weird Menace, offers one track of six movements, a stream-of-consciousness barrage of various captive-bolt stunners spanning damn-near the entire continuum of heaviness. The campy horror themes are hardly cartoonish, while the range demonstrated in these eighteen minutes (all one fucking take, you should note) will make your teeth hurt. Beams of sludge and doom outline a course, but stoner repetition and thrashy fret molestations coagulate in an absurdly complete metal experience.

Opening on the punchy nostalgia of Possess the Exorcist, you'd think this is a quick grindhouse tour of classic thrash, forgetting to breathe as blisters form. But the Goddamn electric lumber of Doomfinger is pure blunt-force doom brutality, crashing and shattering as giants bark beyond their chains. The one-two sets the tone, advising listeners to expect nothing and blink as little as necessary.

But the bulk of what this album achieves begins with the spacey break toward Ectoplasm. Cool hovers and a cosmic tapestry of buzz is littered with panned plucks, making one nearly use a descriptor that's everwhere lately: organic. Things appear smooth, but they're just itchin' to get ugly. We're split dead-open with an escalated, abrupt, scream-coated blast of guitars and cymbals that signal this reprieve is fucking over, dude. The true sludge roots of Creature From The Black Lagoon are a near-nod to swampy 8mm films from your attic. Scorching, screeching licks pepper the terrapin pace before the consuming swirl of Vampyromorphida glazes everything with static. Meters chug, we ascend, we collapse... And as the pace lifts, guitars have already swollen beyond the point of shedding their skins.

Completing the full spectrum is the torrid thrash of Headless Priest, a quick-paced closing argument that Lavagoat's evolution is ongoing and ceaseless. From frantic to stoner-steady to slow-simmering, this final passage offers the most complete pitch for the band's marriage of proficiency and focus. The storm of elements burns brightest here, hoser. To compactly administer this much mayhem so deftly in such little time is the truly staggering triumph. Whatever your poison, look no further.

Use only as directed.

For fans of: Cathedral, Vulgaari, Venom

Pair with: Crazy Farm! Farmhouse Ale, Prairie Sun Brewery

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Album Review: Lavagoat - Self-titled

If Lavagoat’s self-titled debut album provides any indication of what life is like in Saskatchewan, I wonder why the province doesn’t produce more ominous doom bands capable of inflicting beautifully horrifying tales of isolation and despair. These eight tracks serve as a solid testimonial to taking what’s been given and finding inspiration where sunshine comes at a premium. Consistently bleak, agonizingly proficient, and thoroughly heavy are just three of a myriad of identifiers for this far-North four piece.

Puritan initiates this cleansing of the wicked with heavy feedback and a slow, condemned rumble. Vocals are layered with one gnarring bite hovering just above another, while a fuzz-groove hums steadily until nails hit a chalkboard as it rolls through bouncing dust ball riffs and clanking cymbals.

Throughout the album on tracks like The House and The Witch, Lavagoat avoid being pinned to any distinct sound, using melody and psychedelia as a sporadic companion to the distorted drag of sludge and marching death. Magma reminds the listener of El Paso punkers At the Drive-In, though smoky psychotropic accents do give way to tinny, out-of-control guitar quasars driven by Graham’s blistered drum-thumps.

The vocals shift from cave-dwelling Lemmy to Will Rahmer-toilet gurgle, at times even breaking into comedic crooning and peaceful acceptance. This multi-faceted assault perfectly complements tracks like the progressive Old Man and The Sea, which owes a debt to Mastodon’s time signatures and mystical themes. Rome tries to claw itself from an army of plodding, marching spongers, moving from medieval melancholy to a soaring stoner riff and back into a chanting throng.

The album improves as it plays, with later tracks highlighting exactly what Lavagoat are all about. Interstellar Deserts/Azazoth is a bouncing tandem of fluttering guitar laced with drums that just patiently hang around instead of steal the spotlight. Wispy and spooky, though also welcoming, the track breaks down with pounding drums and buzzsaws, entering a space-warp jam kicking up rooster tails until an oncoming train howls through the song’s end. The instruments seem to be doing exactly what Lavagoat want them to do.

Lavagoat never douse the listener with more than what’s necessary, exercising restraint at pivotal moments and pulling back the terror just before dragging you up a winding cobblestone stairwell. The album hits the widest spectrum of sonic emotions and can be as cathartic as it is exhausting. I've never been to Saskatchewan, and I'm not certain I'll plan on visiting. But Lavagoat manage to keep their fans warm by pulling their hair and holding their feet to a burning pyre.

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