Sunday Sludge: Twingiant - "Devil Down"

Late in 2013, my five year-old son fell in love with Hot For Teacher when it aired on local rock radio. Figuring this could serve as an appropriate funnel into a larger, clearer picture of rock music, I purchased The Best of Both Worlds, Van Halen's over-inflated jumble that moves from brilliant to painful in-between songs. My kids quickly dismissed 34 of the 36 tracks, and shifting to Sabbath and AC/DC has yet to yield positive results. I was once told that Alexander may be the best all-purpose male name, whether placed first, last, or as part of a middle name. But figuring Van Halen to be the best all-purpose (amusing, albeit vanilla) rock band proved I still have some work to do.

Two of Van Halen's covers on that compilation sprung from 1982's Diver Down, arguably the band's most difficult material to digest. But Perhaps Phoenix stoner-sludgers Twingiant are big fans, considering the visual parallels offered by Devil Down, the band's excellent 2nd full-length. The front and back covers mimic Diver Down's format, and both albums feature three instrumental tracks. Fortunately for Twingiant, that's where the parallels end. Devil Down's seven tracks wrap us in fuzzy riffs and effortlessly saunter between rock and metal on a path blurred with cosmic dust.

The album's three instrumental tracks soothe and envelop, looming with distant plucks and leaving behind a pleasant trail of melody. Old Hag is steady, cathartic, and provides a perfect introduction to Twingiant's stoner-buzz nebula. Fuzz oozes and coats our itching craws, expanding on guitar noodles toward a closing sludge push. The huge, punchy hum on Under a Blood Moon buries us, and we can only smile. Swarms of guitar brilliance characterize Through the Motions, balancing clean licks and bristling riffs. The backdrop of sky-shot track marks builds on the foundation of heaviness and we begin wishing we never find our way back.

Dead to Rights is a quick stoner-sludge romp highlighting the band's brand of focused freedom to do whatever they choose. Brash and self-assured, Jarrod's vocal enters to complement splitting guitars on a steadily progressive spiral toward the sun. As lights begin to dim, Daisy Cutter emerges on a low-burning thickness opened up by powerful, straightforward rock licks. It's harmonized and meticulously crafted, breaking into characteristic plucks staring into the past. When the clouds break, sludge flows freely and we again enjoy a tingle at the base of our skulls.

The closing title track is the disc's longest, and likely its most encompassing in terms of stoner and sludge metal tags. There's a bit more violence here, interrupting a brilliant calm and entering a buoyant, drawn-and-quartered swing against a tapestry of matted fur. The ominous gait ties-in to sludge vitriol, and we're carried home atop trademark chalky, sandy licks directed at the heavens. All we can do now is cruise and take in the twilight.

Devil Down provided me with a reality check, being that I crafted my list of 2014's favorites without having heard this album. Twingiant ease in and gradually throw back, introducing a sooty reality laced with surges, fades, and swoons. The detours are sticky and consoling, reflecting the band's commitment to finding harmony between evolution and allegiance. These seven tracks are distinctly Twingiant, but they're also fresh and dynamic. The sounds are never lost in the dust, never stuck in the mud, and never too high to die. And you may never want to stop listening.

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Seth's 2014 Year In Review

I needed every second of 2014 to craft a list of favorites. Saying goodbye to the year and its bearded buoyancy (weren't beards the rage lately?), I left behind a trail of hard-earned dollars and dodged awkward gay-bar glances as things grew real foggy. I've scratched and scribbled in hopes of trimming down an impartial litany of the most-spun releases from the last twelve months. The task is daunting, so I'll work to keep things simple and clean.

Sunday's Best

I've got two stacks. One toppled by the bands served on silver platter Sundays. The other towering with records I wasn't smart enough to write about. Regardless, these lists are little more than a refresher on a year in which the best sounds blasted down Highway 251 as I ran out of colorful descriptors. Here are the Sunday smokers that lifted our heads highest.

Possessor - Electric Hell

I had a brief obsession with Vince Bugliosi's Helter Skelter years ago. Something about these nine grinders immediately took me back there (that album art surely played a role). From cavernous doom to rat-rod drudge, Possessor gripped my fuckin' nuts and beat me into compliance. Oozing sweat and sex and handshakes with Satan, Electric Hell immediately became my favorite album of 2014.

Disastroid - Missiles

It's always fun to say an album's sound defied categorization, but this was the year's best example. Missiles struck a chord and nestled into my frontal cortex, forming memories I didn't realize existed. Steady and damn-near perfect, the shifts are never forced and the 90's morning wood never kills my buzz. It's sonic anesthesia peppered with sobering stoner-sludge, and every minute is devastating.

Godhunter - City of Dust

I knew Godhunter would deliver the goods before I even heard this 8-track crusher. What was staggering was the message, and the caviling delivery of rebellion's impetus is Godhunter's true trophy here. City of Dust marked an assured stomp toward this band not only cementing their name, but more importantly fisting convention and never caving to blind acquiescence. If only we could all be so bold.

Druglord - Enter Venus

There was no prepping for this brand of heaviness. The doom crushes, yes. But the psychedelia and doped-out howls leave a glaze on your fingers and the crushing blows are relentless. Crashing timbers couldn't shake the Earth like these four tracks. This album is just one step too far in that bad trip. Point of no return? Shit, man... Your best bet is to own it, become it. (Just stay off your neighbor's lawn).

No Way - Sing Praises

The NYC edge hardly goes wasted here. No Way's violent blend of smoke, sludge, and noise put me on my back and never offered help getting up. The sonic deception can't cloud the album's smoothest moments, but Sing Praises is at its best when it's at its most rough. Savage for being so harmonic and sprawling for being so brief, these are four tracks I'll endorse over and over.

Lotus Ash - The Word of God

The post-metal marriage composed of members of two of Milwaukee's finest bands cultivates a bullied cadence that aches gorgeously. Lotus Ash offer metal of a more acute order, grooving with violent permutations and balancing prospect with cold, concrete realizations. Whether you're a thinker or a stumbling stomper, The Word of God holds plenty for you to fall in love with.

Ancient Altar - Self-titled

Twisted slabs of filthy dregs wriggle with strange, hot psychedelia on Ancient Altar's sludgy spiral into madness. Buoyant and laced with whispers of smoke, this debut offers four tracks promising more doomy wisdom than newcomers should have any right to. Balancing those sounds of the 70's with the ugliest, grimiest assertions of tomorrow, this album hits the nail on the head. Repeatedly.

MotherSloth - Moribund Star

Sullen complexity takes its time on MotherSloth's sophomore opus. Moribund Star sprawls with precision and sprays with abandon, hoping and deflating and completing a cycle of life that you'll have on repeat. Stoner-sludge rhythms never club you, but they leave just enough burn to slug your senses numb. Instrumental outfits appear to work just a bit harder, and this is the progressive payoff.

The Powder Room - Curtains

The swagger strapped to this noise is refreshing and unmatched. The Powder Room blow smoke in your face and get real punchy real fast. If you develop a stutter, you may need to step back and pass on this one. Curtains is that asshole at work who has the dirt on management and can do as much or as little as he wants. Luckily, we're still on his good side. These tracks are way too cool for guys like us.

Giza - I Am The Ocean, I Am The Sea

Instrumental swells and hovers slammed me through Giza's sludgy atmospherics, strangely prophetic considering not a damn word is spoken here. Slow, patient boulder tosses span these five depth-charging tracks and result in 2014's most accomplished marriage of brawn and brains. Giza here boast they're only getting better with age.

And the others?

The number of submissions we receive is ever-increasing and wholly humbling. Even more difficult than working through them all is actually enjoying the music NOT sent our way. So whether I was spoon-fed the sweetest sludge this side of the bayou or had to do some crate-digging, here are ten other 2014 releases that shouldn't go unmentioned.

Yob - Clearing the Path to Ascend

Point blank, this is the best record I heard in 2014. Yob are peaking, but it's difficult to imagine this band hitting a plateau of any kind. The musicianship has never been better, and the expanses crafted within these four songs are progressive, profound, and encompassing. Each listen reveals something new, and under each layer is another mouth-breathing moment I can't wrap my head around. Yet again, this trio fails to disappoint.

Monolord - Empress Rising

Relentlessly lumbering fuzz-doom that hovers, staggers, and resonates. Empress Rising took me by surprise with its gloom and unmatched gravity. Monolord's riffs spun a web in my skull and I haven't bothered mounting an escape. This is heavy, tasty, and worth every fucking cent. Ribboned with stoner repetition, this timber drops long and sits fat. Delicious.

Lightsabres - Spitting Blood

It's easy to be impressed, knowing this is just one man. But the true accolade should be tossed toward what that one man has shaped with the sound. Spitting Blood's lo-fi, muffled, point-on-a-spinning-globe approach sounds fresher than the bulk of bullshit dealt our way this year. There's something timely and beautifully unsettling about these songs, and I can say my biggest 2014 regret is not giving this release the Sunday treatment. You'll love this record.

Swans - To Be Kind

A year in review generally results in me flipping open my wallet as album copies run out. THIS album fucking blew me away! Is this the backlash against the backlash? Hipsters LOVE this album. Wait! Hipsters HATE this album. Dude, I just had my mind raped by Swans, so I don't give a good fuck where you think these sounds fall. My torso evolved into a littered cemetery as I listened. Essentially, To Be Kind is a mindfuck of an album and Swans remain patient, experimental royalty.

Electric Citizen - Sateen

Electric Citizen toured with Fu Manchu and made no haste in stealing the bill. Four decades of influence, no shortage of guitar fuzz, and Laura Dolan's witchy presence combine to make Sateen doom's sexiest response to Sabbath. The band's dark majesty is more substance than hype, trust me. The psychedelia buzzes and chops at comparisons, carving little option but to embrace Electric Citizen as your new favorite band.

Ogre - The Last Neanderthal

I've loved Ogre since they served a strange hearken of classic predecessors in 2010, but here they cement their meld of doom and stoner metal in a hurried, focused fashion. This latest is honed and pared, resonating with the good-feel of brothers reunited. Fuzz-headed doom needn't overthink things, but Ogre find smarts when they find restraint. 70's influence saturates recent releases, and Ogre may be the most backboned of the lot.

Greenleaf - Trails & Passes

To which Keith alluded, these sounds vary and sprawl. The stoner supergroup that is Greenleaf has yet to stumble, and despite their loveseat haze, they still offer a bit o' heart. Not a damn one of these nine songs mimics the inflated horseshit of their imitators, yet none manage to posture in the shadows of the members' other bands. Greenleaf burn their own path, and every detour is just as delicious as the last.

Rodha - Welter Through The Ashes

I've finally found a Rodha ally in Pete. These boys pack emotion into every corner and the gravity injected into every note just fucking amazes me. Channeling sludge violence and (incredibly) funneling feeling under stoner-doom cadence is nothing short of miraculous. How the FUCK is this band not conquering the world right now?! Good GODDAMN this is gorgeous!



Indian - From All Purity

Indian opened up 2014 without a glimpse of hope. This is flat-out fucking violent and vile, six scorching sludgers that can't find relent. From All Purity is abrasive and scornful, so much so that I'm shocked I can even return to the bloodied corpse of last winter. Indian ensure you'll feel every barbed note and forget about enjoying your dinner. Sludge? Doom? Noise? Fuck. This album sounds like murder.

Floor - Oblation

Roaring over beautiful 'scapes and cascading melodies, Oblation is that devastating pull between hope and lament. The chewy sweetness complements the fuzziest of tones, structured underneath a shiny psychedelia rarely found. It's as if stoner-doom took the day off to spend some time under palm trees. Then again, the screeches and crushes remind us where to plant our feet.

Sunday Sludge Bouillaisse Volume III

Give it six months, and I'm gonna find that certain ennui. Submissions form a steaming pile, holiday obligations further tug at my sleeve, and by midnight I'm snarling and struggling to explain that these sounds are my sanity. I know, I KNOW! Scan the queue, pick and choose, draft your praise, close shop, shift back to parenthood. It's maddening. So maddening that I sit with a list of incredible bands and albums that I worry will go unnoticed. We thereby offer the acts you need to hear this Sunday in one setting, course for course matched with slug for slug.

Slug Salt Lava

Three crunched releases find their marquee on Radiated Soundscapes, a five-track EP of post-everything, essentially dialing pensive, buoyant repetition and stoner-sludge maturity that few young bands can boast. Patience chips and chops at lumbered riffs and the lingering cool buzz finds nostalgia, the oft-rejected (sometimes blistered) hot-mist soulmate so few embrace. Try it. You'll be stunned.

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Kurokuma

The overt violence echoes Grizzly and the goof element whispers of Big Dumb Face, but don't be fooled. There's a structured, distant puncture lacing this tandem. Something bigger is happening here, something primitive and unapologetic. Thump, burn, bubble toward a blister... As raw as this is, it's difficult to imagine polished production. Kurokuma mock compromise, hovering under strange, perfect swirls that move neither back nor forward.

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Comacozer

This Aussie trio weaves lilted, warped psychedelia and far-East hypnosis, all risen from sonic patches of hot sand. Patient, confident, and at times coated in beautiful filth, this triptych leads us into progressively back-breaking gazes toward monumental marriages of endearment and deception. You won't be able to keep your eyes open or your mouth from gaping.

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Monte Resina

The five tracks offered on this EP shoot instrumental stoner sludge without offering a chaser. The quick-trotted fuzz is spiked with drum slugs and driven due South via grunge, groove, and gnarl. Monte Resina snatch victory from the soil, and peering into the clearing only offers brief gasps on this otherwise staggering, nut-dragging smoke stomp through the timber. Fuckin' awesome.

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The Stone Eye

Yet I Feel So Fine is merely a one-track introduction to this Philadelphia duo, and it's a fine one. A sonic duality demonstrating the band's broad scope with a pair of all-too-quick strokes, the divide abandons only to return full-circle. Burning slow-motion rises and falls take us from dirt to cloud, all the while laced with a haunting vocal that somehow never makes us uneasy. Quite the contrary, in fact. This could open or close any Sunday, if you ask me.

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Sunday Split: Goya / Wounded Giant

Enough of the leftovers. I've gorged myself into a turkey-hash and cranberry coma over the course of three days, placing me in perfect position to try something new, fresh, and (as luck would have it) fucking sinister. I don't feature many splits on these Sundays, primarily because so many end up featuring (heads:) one band's best effort and (tails:) another's obligatory toss-off. But pair two left coast stoner-doom titans and you've piqued my interest.

"In ancient Rome, there was a poem... About a dog who had two bones. He picked at one, he licked the other... He went in circles 'til he dropped dead." 

Come 2015, STB Records will release a split LP tandem featuring Phoenix's Goya and Seattle's Wounded Giant, certifiably cementing both acts as forces in a riffed landscape of dust and sand. After one spin, you'll struggle to decide which act deserves the first nod toward another listen. It really doesn't matter, so long as you make no haste. I do my best to be cerebral and offer poignant, insightful perspectives on the sounds sent my way. But these three tracks kicked in my teeth and made my hands shake, rendering me damn-near unable to even grip a knob to elevate the decibels.

First consider Goya's fourteen-tick No Place In The Sky, shelling their own weed-doom blitz while staying true to the form evident on last year's crushing 777. This opener immediately drips with hovering fuzz, masking a patient riff-mist and snagging reluctant drums for the ride-along. In hindsight, it's deceptive considering the full-brunt drop of doom ushered in by the succession of relentless blows. As riffs manipulate a canopy of smoke, Jeff Owens' vocal is haunted by its own shadow and stalked by his fractured fret licks. Beyond the midpoint, his guitar cracks what's disheartening and desolate by imposing blisters you'll never let heal. The rhythmic churn never loses steam behind Nick Lose and Chad Moline, slow-rolling toward an acceptance of fate. Short of a few brief, sporadic firings, the ungodly stagger leaves us peeling at our own hot skin, barely seeking sense in this teeming pool. Fourteen minutes? I'd let this one glaze me for fourteen days.

Flip the wax and you'll find Wounded Giant's one-two, led by The Room Of The Torch. Juxtaposing side one as more than a shade quicker, the track is no less imposing. Bathed in hot shit but looking toward a fading sun, these sludge rhythms give way to doom sensibilities. As a ritualistic gathering appears imminent, listeners are quickly pulled back into dragged-knuckle cruises and coated with skin-tingling sustain. Strap in and hold on as we quickly convert to unhinged stoner acceleration. Psychedelia saturates as we dig into a steamy swamp escape that's as deceptive as it is delicious.

Swaying and swinging with concrete fists is Dystheist, the split's epic closing coup. If this giant's wounded, he's hardly fucking bothered by it. Distant hover is merely a harbinger of the settling spook and ethereal pipes brought by Bobby James. Riff tarps wrap and suffocate atop a sticky, malevolent tempo led by Alex Bytnar's punchy charges. This track, boiled down to terms your haze can understand, is an embrace of the negative. Wounded Giant's unmistakable 70's salute remains in their back pocket, but the swirls toward an epic closing storm of exploding light marks a stomp apart from their brilliant Lightning Medicine.

You're wasting your time in search of another split this complete. Goya and Wounded Giant each bark their case as the marquee act. But clearly, both trios commit to embrace the other and peer downhill at the devastation they've collectively scattered behind them. Perhaps these three tracks can finally provide your mom with enough worry to simply leave you alone in the basement rather than investigate that skunky waft. If you've made it this far, she knows she's lost you. STB is only churning 430 of these on wax. I know you're weary, but try acting fast.

Specs:

Released January 3rd, 2015

Limited vinyl pressing of 430

Die Hard Edition - 80 pieces
Band Only - 100 pieces
OBI Series - 100 pieces
Not-So Standard Edition - 150 pieces

Mastered specifically for vinyl

Exclusive artwork done by David Paul Seymour

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And in the meantime...

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Sunday Stoner Sludge: Olmeg - "Primordial Soup"

This is as much time as I've spent with any one single band in ages. Melbourne's Olmeg consumed a frigid November weekend with their 2012 debut, Slab, only to follow it up by introducing the sophomore epic Primordial Soup. I'd hoped to wrap up a few loose ends at home, but this trio of diggers managed over two hours of distraction that I'd welcome back without hesitation. As a student of the 90's, these nine tracks presented me the makings of a disenchanting trap. What I found was instead a trip marrying my past and my present, an incredibly staggering ambivalence between looking back and facing forward.

That Slab was all I could've wanted, littered with quick, punchy grunge dropped into a bath of fuzz and jangled funk. Riffs, sludge rhythms, meaty choruses, and occasional catharses lulled me into a build toward poignant ascents, steadily swelling behind a slow and cavernous psychedelia drifting into barroom blues and southern fists. Those bloody knuckles bobbed for stones and came up caked, but the trippy mirages stole marquee billing. This band wants to come unhinged, it's clear. What's more evident on their nine-track return, due out December 12th, is the crafted strides these mates have committed to making.

Spacey, smooth, tripped-out... Trans-dimensional hits a gait and becomes all things. Jammy instrumentals immediately showcase the strides the band made in those two years, complete with focused warble and thick-riffed skyshots. The chippy sandiness of Megalomaniac sits low, simmering and dazzling with lo-fi QOTSA stickiness that stares with head-up fuzz deflation under a slow stagger. The Wolves billows with stoner crunch, buoyant without being cartoonish. Olmeg's engine hums and purrs with a tasty viscosity. So here we are, fellas. Lightyears ahead of where we'd expect.

The immediately pensive, somber Nest is distant until meat-riffs fall like boulders. These courses vary from more-than-you-can-chew to whisper-sniff-swipe servings, the main course a gristle sitting long on the tongue. Wash it down in cosmic guitar bursts and rest that sorrow under a blanket of warm stoner fuzz, bro. And that reflection returns with Scolder, Olmeg's swamp-swagger sway that relents to rueful lumbers. Oh, that sad stoner, struggling to find his place between two divergent atmospheres. This is for him.

For all its tip-toeing, though, Primordial Soup lays down some fucking beef. Tilt the landscape and welcome Told You So, the band's return to stoner-sludge groove. Swirls crash with epic gravity, but what's heaviest is the patience the band exercises. Sure, those quiet moments hold a spooky, touching gravity... But the track truly serves as just another showcase of improved craft and expansive, evolving style. Crunching and punching with loose limbs, Olmeg swell in every direction toward a shameless, hard-boiled cosmos. Mettle is melodic and hopeful, steadily plugging and plodding as the best stoner-sludge does. It's grungy and quite patient, breaking into a fuzzy bass isolation. So hey, isn't that just SO, like, 90's?

I don't have enough space, and if you've made it this far into this gushing diatribe, it's fair to ask why you haven't just clicked the links and screened the tracks. There's a LOT here to digest, and every bit holds a fair balance between past, present, and future. Every track from Primordial Soup provides an exercise in pulsing strength, but still manages the sack to hit every corner. These passages display endless evolution and aren't about to shy from the pain that comes with it. With unmatched tonal movement, these nine tracks offer unpredictable shifts that are deceptively uncalculated and unfairly precise. Olmeg break us, fold themselves, and expand our atmosphere. As this band welcomes the dirt, they encapsulate us without apology.

As stated, 12-12-14. Until then...

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Sunday Stoner Sludge: Riff Fist

I don't feel much like writing this morning. The weather fucking sucks, I just blew a few bills on new tires yesterday, and last night's chocolate stouts have painted me ragged. I needed a pick-me-up; something straight to the point that didn't meander and hover and drop hints. Melbourne's Riff Fist offered the most succinct elixir I could find, slapping me silly with... um... riffs. Six tracks off two releases are rotating in my den as I try to figure out how the fuck this meatiness stayed off my radar for so long.

2013's Fistful Of Riffs is just that. Twenty-four minutes of caffeinated stoner-sludge riffage packed tight under white-knuckle truth. Give it a go. Chase it with this year's For A Few Riffs More, uncorking Master of the Grove as a chaser to Riff Stew. There's no pretense here. If you spent any of the 90's enjoying Paw but found them a tad bleak, this has just enough shine and balls to push you west with no doubts. Hit up these links and get dirty. My hangover's gone and I'm jumping in with both feet.

Er... fists.

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Sunday Cephalopod: Squidlord

There's a strange numbness in some of my extremities. Who knows what that might indicate, but it's just one more shining example of my fleeting youth. I'll do my best to keep typing, but I'll apologize in advance for any abrupt disruption of today's feature. Now that I think of it, perhaps today's sounds are to blame for the loss of senses.

Asheville's Squidlord hardly sound like a band delivering their first album. The eleven instrumental tracks on their self-titled debut may as well be connected as one. Transcending labels like psychedelic, stoner, doom, and sludge is hardly the album's greatest achievement, but it's a hell of a place to start. You're gonna love this.

Using no vocals whatsoever, the band still weaves quite a tale. The riff spikes and shifting tempos chronicle a steady ascent, seemingly insurmountable challenges, climactic passages, and a staggering denouement. Squidlord's narrative buzzes in cyclical fashion, keeping listeners locked in for the better part of a forty-four minute journey at sea.

Discovery's smooth introduction buoys and swells toward an angry stoner sea of epic crashes, while The Whiskey Barrel spills cool breaths and cascading drums. A colossal tapestry of hanging guitars crafts a layered sound that's as gorgeously turbulent as it is ever-progressing. Things get sticky with the sludge of Washed Up, kicking southern licks and lifting tempos into a trot. And doom? Well, Thrown In Jail (Locked Up) is a slow-motion, one-eyed stagger swaying and burning with cosmic strings. Fate is tempted, battles are lost, and the pain of truth is realized.

So all the Heavy Planet essentials are bookmarked, but the album's greatest moments follow on the back end. A meaty southern approach emerges on the confident Vision of the Phoenix and the slow, bass-driven treads of Calling Abraxas. Tide's End warbles and weaves with awesome movement, and Soosah's Tavern chugs, busts bottles, and may be the most fun you'll have all day. Pull after pull, this libation lingers on the tongue.

Squidlord take moments to look back and assess the damage, but more important are their puffed-chest, fist-swinging returns to flattening. Cover to cover, this instrumental trip meets challenges, finds its knees, and emerges for an even more impressive push. Rock-hard stutters somehow complement passages of somber woe. This album gathers moss as it gains momentum. Not many can boast such improbable achievements.

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Sunday Sludge: Grizzly - "Rapturous Decay"

For all the early-morning fog, sweet-spiced coffees, and open-mouthed gazes toward changing colors, there's also plenty I never trusted about the autumn shift. Something seems underhanded and sinister to the point of my guard lifting. And to be fair, that's why it's so great. But don't you get tired of everyone saying they love fall?

Two years ago, we introduced ourselves to Budapest's sludge-n'-rollers Grizzly, an overtly violent quintet of pissed-off stoners committed to unleashing hot, gnarling malevolence on unsuspecting lemmings. Their six-track Fear My Wrath stayed on my radar through year's end, cemented as one of the year's best, as I saw it.

With their follow-up, the band adopt autumn's roundabout, nuanced administration of subversion. Rapturous Decay offers a rollicking half-dozen meaty slabs of hate, masked in groove and caked with steaming shit. Grizzly have discovered an element of patience, making their toxic blend of Southern stoner-sludge all the more dangerous. Monolith opens markedly more subdued than The Cultist, rolling smoothly until Grizzly find their fangs. The track is coated and self-assured, so perhaps the mere threat of lurking evil is even more effective than a blade in your nostril. Slick resin, buoyant rhythms... The boys are back.

Pass Those Pills follows with effective pregnant pauses that heighten anxiety. This cool roll in the hay dizzies as it soaks, and the head-shaking search for answers proves this band is maturing. Bluesy lament and self-realization were never expected. Ride Along is more upbeat, not giving two shits about spilling. The trademark middle finger is back, kept greasy via Knapp's grimy pipes. They're still Grizzly; nothing ever shines for long.

Serving as a harbinger of evil, The Silver Key is fucking fed up. This chugger rolls slow and gathers momentum, churning and flattening with unhinged riffs. What follows on the closing tandem, however, pairs nine minutes of beer-swiggin' bar blues and a potent wall-to-wall stagger. Rapturous Decay Pt 1 is all-inclusive, no less dynamic given the muted aggression. Sitting dockside with a harmonica, an empty bottle, and more than a few rough thoughts, we're hardly prepared for what's hovering and taking shape above. Part 2's stoner foundation is spiked with roaring rants, promising Grizzly's lack of regard for consequence. Calm nods and long breaths briefly deceive us until the shakes return. Tension grows, coils tighten... These guys are gonna snap. One slam after another and we're spent.

Grizzly's swampy stoner roots remain intact, and the intentions still ice the spine. So the band found their own fog in the form of cool plucks to ease the burn. We're given time to be frightened, questioning all around us. We get stuck in the mud, we scratch for branches, and we briefly believe we've found a foothold for a fighting chance. Nope. Turns out the murderous Hungarians are still pissed. And hungry. And breathing on your neck.

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Sunday Stoner-Sludge: Disastroid - "Missiles"

Soccer games, allergy meds, and ridiculous waves from non-friends tend to characterize my Autumns. One exhausting sneeze follows another as my fucking kids amp the tempo and I stab my fucking eye with a sharp stick. Can't we just head home, make dinner, and watch animated drivel until you lose steam and I can carry you to soft dreams, kid? Ha, whoa... "fuck you, Dad!" Sunday translates to salvation, and today's saviors may be the year's best.

California's Disastroid weave a tight sludge-noise tapestry of frayed nerves on Missiles, eight shifty tip-toed exercises of varying speeds and styles that blur lines between genres and likely inject more scope-stretching sounds than any release featured in the Sunday Sludge of 2014. Not exactly accessible, not exactly unsettling, not exactly less-than-awesome, Disastroid click through thirty-five minutes balancing grind and buzz, never quite abandoning a meter that makes you believe they're smarter than you. And they don't care.

Opening slow on Lost in Space may be the band's greatest ruse, hitting hard with abrupt collapse and snuffing comfort. The whisper-scream dynamic is never as pretentious as you'd expect, the un-hinged approach being less important to the trio than their dinner plans. Through shrill ice and the warp of convention, Disastroid immediately announce their bass-driven leveling of standards. But Bird Watcher is somehow more welcoming with its deceptively clean gait. Repetitive and numbing, the track contains elements of 90's buzz that balance the noisy and the focused, making them (somehow) more unsettling. Jagged, jarring rhythms begin characterizing the sound and wagging tongues.

Haunt and fog are never out of reach, though. Unsound Mind spaces through a bayou and grows more eerie with passing moments. Enver's vocals find their marquee here, establishing a cautious trust by calling out your flaws. Buoyant, heavily-caked rhythms harken Failure's best moments, grinding a bit before mudding and hazing. To bottom-line things, Disastroid won't let your bullshit go unnoticed.

The disc's back-end triptych may wind up being one of 2014's crowning achievements. Mighty Road sounds like sunny Sunday morning kitchen appliances when you're NOT hungover, punchy and patient until guitar noise grows atop a Helmet-ish stop/start tempo. The track shifts, dodges labels, and the scratchy unfurl is pretty awesome. When the cold-stone ending passage eases into Obeah, we're abruptly faced with the album's slickest smack. Loaded with angst and shaken-head judgments, vocal barbs peel off the wheels a la Whores. and the late Akimbo. The evolution is frightening and enthralling as listeners watch patterns and plans totally fucking dissolve.

And oh, that title track. Subtle entry, escalation, a slight hope for escape... What a cool fucking track, buzzing like your first car and fully-aware of its own strength, this juggernaut is a tense juxtaposition of piqued guitars and cool, steady rhythms. Sprinkling the landscape with hope is a cruel exercise when you consider the long, drawn-out saturation of reality on the horizon. Every element is showcased, and all corners of this band's directives are finally revealed. Maybe we weren't supposed to smile in the first place.

Spacey escalations and grounded assertions are just one of the myriad of Missiles's accomplished marriages. This stoner-sludge effort is so much more than hazy jams or drudging rhythms. Try as they might, Disastroid never let the noise detract from their proficiency. Is your stepdad gonna beat you awake or is he gonna wait for you to figure out things for yourself? It's hard to tell. Disastroid's soundtrack to your bruised walk to school won't boost your ego. It's just gonna take a nuanced approach toward your self-improvement. Self-improvement? Shit... by year's end, you'll be at your scabby best.

For fans of: Melvins, Whores., Failure
Pair with: Rosa Hibiscus Ale, Revolution Brewing

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Sunday Sludge: Sploof

Sometimes, it's all in the name. Sploof caught my eye with their overt endorsement of hiding the evidence. I expected slow-rolling riffage and a wicked haze. What I didn't expect was to play these two tracks on a repeated loop for hours on a Sunday morning. I planted myself in bed about six hours ago and can't believe I'm saying this, but this band is making it impossible for me to catch a few more winks.

After conducting an extensive online search for "Sploof," I've found plenty of information my boss never needs to know about. I'm offered hope by the words "demo clip" at the end of each track title, leading one to believe these are pieces of more extensive, exhaustive sonic sessions. White Widow and Granddaddy Purple are seemingly seasoned heavy-hitters on par with sludge metal's lumbering titans, those worshipping the Yesca. This tandem offers resinous sludge-doom laced with swinging, swaying riffage of epic dimensions. Grab the dryer sheets and blast this fucker at a volume your parents won't test.

The unfiltered, cavernous sonic resonations of White Widow break into viscous stoner-sludge-doom-drone elements of unmatched viscosity. Guitar acmes pepper the dense riff drills and the coughing fits are simply collateral damage. Granddaddy Purple, on the other hand, clobbers with more oblivious abandon. Chugging only fast enough to avoid getting fully stuck in shit. The choppy stutter is fucking glorious, and the passages of illuminating embers craft a landscape littered with cymbals and distortion that pans and ends all-too-abruptly.

Hey, Sploof... If you're reading this, hit me up. I wanna hear more.

For fans of: Sabbath, Bongzilla, Weedeater
Pair with: Extreme Intensage American Imperial IPA, Solemn Oath Brewery

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Sunday Sludge: Acid Goat

Imagine a world where Black Sabbath never existed. Iommi never riffed, Ward never jazzed, and Ozzy & Geezer never tripped and wrote shit like Fairies Wear Boots. You'd wonder where that would leave the heaviest bands of the last four decades. Would Birmingham still be credited as birthing heavy metal? Would we have fans demanding to knight Rob Halford instead of John Michael Osbourne?

While Birmingham's produced unlistenable pop acts like Dexys Midnight Runners and Fine Young Cannibals, thank Christ they've given us Napalm Death and Godflesh. Adding to the city's litany of great heavy acts is sludge-doom trio Acid Goat. Providing a nod to 1970 and stomping a bootprint into tomorrow's breakfast, these stone tossers drop four slabs of riffage that'll have you suffering from gravity's cruel joke. This self-titled EP is so swollen with thickness that you may be walking with a cane from now on.

Demonstash opens with echoes of the first and finest moments of Black Sabbath on Black Sabbath by Black Sabbath. The descending doom lumbers and looms with massive, entrancing reverberations. Long, deceptive pauses provide minimal relief, giving way to lingering guitar screeches as drums usher doom's second wave. This instrumental clinic is wholly devoted to the riff. Nosferatu's low, malevolent bass plucks offer an even thicker, filthier breed of sludge. Vocals emerge, spitting and echoing to add a subhuman element to the murky nightmare. Things get weird, though, as wormy guitar licks bob and weave for a whisper of thrown-back psychedelia. Ever-expanding, there's seemingly no end to the destruction.

Acid Goat have their somber moments, however. Green Queen is rife with hollow isolation before we're greeted with a pendulumic sway of high-density doom. Guitars buzz from a distant electric woodshed as repeated rhythmic crashes dent the back of your skull. And that vocal is back, this time weaving rusty barbed wire through your limbs. This track succeeds in swinging a knobby club and flattening anything it crosses. And when Acid Goat take on Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2), they've unearthed trippy licks and a vile vocal that'll have your father scratching his head. This heaviness is Goddamn ridiculous.

It appears these four songs are just the beginning. Stoning and dooming in equal measure, these highs are low and these lows are real... fucking... low. Set aside a few bucks for some new speakers before you spin this shit. Layers reveal themselves beneath each unrolled note, offering an all-too-brief glimpse into a band that just may keep these flames burning hot. Have a seat, please.

For fans of: Sabbath,Conan, Electric Wizard 

Pair with: Burton Baton, Dogfish Head Craft Brewery Inc.

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Sunday Sludge: MotherSloth

Stripping away expectation and ignoring trends appear to be parallel endeavors. Depending on subjects and themes, turning off can be either second nature or an exercise in futility. And perhaps I shouldn't cluster heavy instrumental acts into a "trend," that's not fair. What's really going on is that I lately find myself drawn far more to instrumental acts than ever before, which is nowhere more evident than right here every Sunday morning. So rest your weekend ennui on my shoulders, will ya?

If there's an antidote to the tedium and a break from the mold, you'll find it on MotherSloth's five-track sophomore effort, Moribund Star. Following up their 2012 debut with this (mostly) instrumental shape-shifted colossus demonstrates the band's thickened mettle via stoner-sludge tread balanced by soft, subtle doom-rolls. Looks like these four Madrid heshers are done fuckin' around.

Buoyant plucks introduce Hazy Blur of Life, a twelve-minute layered fuzz bath that, as it expands, takes in as much as it gives off. Elements emerge as the track braces for a cosmic death, haunting with gorgeous blur through smooth whispers. Growing to a stomp and hitting incredible depths without alert or apology, the awesome cathartic buzz is an easy Sunday start. Holy Wall, however, follows with jagged guitars and deliberate, jarring slugs. The gentle lead has become a stern yank away from our creature comforts. Pacing shifts, passages are entirely unpredictable, and the subtropic tip-toe is barbed with poisoned arrows and a barrage of cascading flames. As a doom grind descends, we learn peace was never really in reach.

Ominously hovering with long, drawn-out doom, Death Flower is pensive and damn-near vision-inducing. And there's the mask of what's really going on. A hidden, molten landscape unveils and spreads as accomplished guitar licks tickle our feet. Again, there's a betrayal of expectation as calm breaks for mammoth stomps growing in both size and frequency. The brief, intermissionary Blackened Dawn is simple, but bold in its unclad style, offering placid breaths before the closer, Dry Tears. Easing in on tender guitar, there's really a circling of targets. Ghastly tapestries drip with sticky riffs, splitting open and gradually shuffling toward an imminent end. Just as an embrace of cold death seems to blaze all hope, a vocal breathes re-birth into a dying star. Swelling with plod and swirling with stoner-sludge, these sounds hang their heads but boldly face forward.

Rather than shudder and bark back, MotherSloth stare down fate with self-assured structure and weave a nebulous, therapeutic trail of tears. Moods shift with tempos, and expectations (fuck, there's that word again) drown before they even see daylight. Moribund Star hits all the stops without ever detouring, pinching together contemporary progress with a reverence for all that's classic in heavy music. There's no fucking trend. But this is an album I can blame for my amped loyalty to prophetic instrumental peril and the journey on which it takes us.

For fans of: Karma to Burn, Horn of the Rhino, Colour Haze
Pair with: #9 Not Quite Pale Ale, Magic Hat Brewing Company

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Sunday Sludge Bouillabaisse Volume II

I feel like a high school sophomore. My attention span now rivals that of a backyard squirrel, generating mouse clicks darted left and right as a panel of open windows guides me toward our next feature. Blame the bands, man. There's too much sweet sludge spit my way each week, it's just too damn hard to get through all of it. Throwing all the shit into the same rusty pot is the best I can do today. From the banks of the Scioto River to the seamstresses of Leicestershire, we're up to our elbows in thick mire from the world's furthest reaches. Lick your mouth's corners and get lost with a Tibeer Dühös.

Fuzz Lord - The Key in Silence

Straight outta hell via Ohio's backwoods comes Fuzz Lord's chop-block tandem of abrasive, swaying sludge-doom. At times numbing, other times staggeringly malevolent, these sounds hang torn fuzz tapestries and pan between aches and anxiety. Darkly soothing, lumbering and noodling between timber, this is Sunday's perfect drawn-out eye-rub.

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Southerner 1779 - Milk

Oh, fuck. My skin wasn't ready to burn like this so early. This calculated yet chaotic debut track from one-man sludge act Southerner 1779 spills onto the floor and spreads the flames. Drums tin up and guitars dive due South on this frantic crawl through a dark basement. After five minutes of this, you may need a smoke and a shot o' penicillin.

Facebook | Red Venice Records

 Garganjua - Trip Wizard (EP)

This beastly EP is loaded with gigantic, ominous moods administered slowly through hallucinogenic psych-doom haze. Dense sustain, thick riffs, and long hovers transform into riff-n'-roll stoner passages that recall eras past. Breathe heavy and turn down the lights. You'll wanna take in every moment o' these buzzing grooves.

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Heathen Bastard - Self-titled

Opening on a bed of hot ash and glowing embers, Heathen Bastard's s/t opens up to awesome fat-riffing stoner sludge. Long drags on smoky doom ride this fuzzer straight into an approaching storm. As it smolders, it satiates. Heavy as fuck and damn-near perfect, these five tracks made my day.

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Grizzly - Ride Along

Grizzly's first track since 2012's Fear My Wrath is southern sweetness glazed over rollicking angst. It offers an expanded breath at times, but whiskey and gravel marry and go down easy here. Picking up right where they left off, these Hungarians turn us into sweaty rag dolls, bind our extremities, and throw us head-first into a hot trunk. Welcome back, fellas!

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Sunday Sludge: Giza - "I Am The Ocean, I Am The Sea"

This is exactly what I'm talking about when I use the word "heavy." This is exactly what I want, it's perfectly executed, and there isn't a single crack in the structure of these sounds. Nine of Saturday's hours were spent sifting through cluttered toys, clothes, and mail, so the last thing I felt like doing this morning was sorting through bullshit egos and inflated indulgences. So Seattle's Giza have again made my fuckin' day.

Following up 2012's stellar Future Ruins is the five-track I Am The Ocean, I Am The Sea, an instrumental half hour of beautifully-realized servings of crash and sustain. Absolutely nothing roadblocks the dense bruising bookended between I and V, slugging forward yet steadily descending to incredible depths. Crafting prophetic swirl and sprawl is no small task without the benefit of vocal promise and anguish, and to do so with such fleeting, gorgeous discord is thrusting Giza toward seasoned status requiring a second trip to the buffet line.

I and V act as a vice, leaving the album's thorax swollen and primed to explode. Molecular Tsunami pulses with thick grime, lacing timber with screeching themes shifting between the primitive and the progressive. With no shortage of stoner buzz and a perfect marriage of cascading drums and swirling guitars, this one's an absolute fucking delight. There's no denying it's as apocalyptic as the band assures, but this track puffs its chest and welcomes crashing slate as necessity rather than novelty.

Sustained pauses and grinding sludge rhythms characterize the desolate atmospheres of Interplanetary Cyclone. Fleeting across vast expanses and descending into a sea of fire, flames sporadically burst and this song, like its predecessor, begins completely dissolving into itself. Drawing Tar follows with longer-drawn churn, lurching with each passage toward dark intent. Laundry-hung licks cascade between genres, buzzing just beyond the steaming ditch. A deliciously choppy midpoint is highlighted by staggering drumwork, leading an elemental flicker that never fully snuffs out. The track's final death rattle seeks a true path, shifting and smoking toward an abrupt close.

Cemented within the spacey and the sad is a hovering sense of something much larger. Where vocals announce there's a wolf at your door, their absence provides a more unsettling sense of dread. Giza take our imaginations on a tour of sludge's lonely, cavernous corners. We're not sure if the demise is coming from beyond or within, but it's the exploration of those uncertainties that sets apart these sounds. I Am The Ocean, I Am The Sea marks a soaring, lumbering stride for a band that's somehow gotten us more than a little excited for the end of everything. 

For fans of: Isis, Failure, Russian Circles

Pair with: Goose Island Bourbon County Brand Stout (no, no... the 2012), Goose Island Beer Co.

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