Album Review "Wood & Wire" split with Coma Wall and Undersmile

This latest release from the Shaman Recordings camp brings together Oxford UK's Undersmile and their acoustic alter-ego Coma Wall on one release.

Although this is Coma Wall’s debut, they’ve already gained fans after playing sets at Desertfest 2012 and supporting Dylan Carlson (of Earth) on his first ever solo show.The 3 songs, "Summer", "You Are My Death" and "Cutter's Choice" that are offered here are fine examples of stripped down and bare acoustic doom folk jams that are very down tempo with moody riffs, plodding percussion and solemn but transcendental vocals full of earthly and wet forest atmosphere. With elements of dark and bleak folk in the same vein as dark folk bands such as Fearthainne and the desolate and lost driftings of Earth, Coma Wall create a sumptuous sound that is laid back and introspective and is as close to true acoustic doom that you will hear, with this particular genre being somewhat rare, unless I'm missing all the good stuff.

The next 3 songs are from the mother band of Coma Wall; Undersmile. Having enlisted the engineering skills of Justin Greaves (Iron Monkey, Electric Wizard, Crippled Black Phoenix), Undersmile deliver 3 songs of slow and low doom that come in the form of "Soil", "Killer Bob" and "Hives". Each track is just as bleak as the songs from their Coma Wall persona but with a much heavier blackness. The vocals are dark but transcendent and are delivered in a monotone like chant over monolithic and crushing riffs that take their time to pulverize. The drums are sloth like and sparse but when hit they are as earth shaking as the riffs are crushing. Mixing some of their influences such as Swans and Babes in Toyland, Undersmile produce a cold bleakness drawn from the well spring of atmospheric doom that is all at once depressing and invigorating, a paradox that works very well for Undersmile.

"Wood & Wire" can be heard and purchased now from the Shaman Recordings Bandcamp where you can also hear their previous release from UK doomers Black Magician.

SHAMAN RECORDINGS // UNDERSMILE // COMA WALL

Sunday Sludge: Undersmile

Timelines notwithstanding, imagine Layne Staley and Donita Sparks locked in a tryst, aiming to give the world Oxford's Undersmile. Slow, dense, and often ominous as a clouded demon, Undersmile deliver sludge/doom in its stickiest, sexiest sense. Envision the weird goth chick in your Biology class actually being as fucked up as her smeared lipstick promised. That's what this boot-clad mud-trudge four-piece sounds like.

Naming your band after a vagina may give the impression Undersmile don't take themselves too seriously. Maybe they don't, but you wouldn't know from checking out their releases, A Sea of Dead Snakes and the evolved "Undertaker" EP. The grime caked on the seven tracks spanning these discs is painful, eerie, and uniquely muliebrous.

2010's A Sea of Dead Snakes opens with the hilariously-titled Instrumenstrual, a deliberate plod through tautology, complete with lantern-crackle drums and desperate guitar roll. Undersmile extend the toil on Cutters Choice, hiring death to push a meat cart and gather bodies. Guitar swings like a depraved pendulum, sharpened and slicing through boney bass crunch. You'll soon find yourself lost at sea, scratching at your own face with rusty nails pulled from wet planks of sludge.

The tepid buzz of Teutonic Dyslexia is ten minutes of near-majesty, balancing pained pipes and curtain-drawn snarls. Throw back your head and march uphill, where fuzzy licks guide chained prisoners to a thunderous, looming lightning storm reminiscent of Type O Negative's Black Sabbath medley. Hel Sterne and Taz Corona-Brown coalesce to form a vocal tandem that fills a void this genre didn't even know existed.

Crab People opens the door to a crunchy, fuzzy meat locker that slowly snaps necks with guitar pull-back and a rhythmic tin barrel toss. Tom McKibbin and Olly Corona-Brown yield a tempo stumbling through a damp, haunted forest. As you're slipping on mossy logs, the measure builds to both a sense of urgency and sense of "fuck you." Find something to grasp, as open-mouthed groans marry distant sirens for a frightening death blow.

Thumbing a sludgy coil, Spore drops a collossal tempo shrouded in a putrid green mist. Vocals are cold on listeners' necks and the stroke lumbers like a drunken yeti. Licks scrape and hurriedly scurry from under the foot of one-eyed giants. The carry-out is a perfect dissolution of filth, slowly reveling in misfortune and darkness.

2011's "Undertaker" EP left the band little time to let things go sour, with instrumentation that's improved and expanded. Splitting their time with Winchester's Caretaker, the back end of these four tracks sees Undersmile growing confident in the reverb-drenched dawdle of Big Wow. Fully-realized vocals, stuttering riffs, and tempo shifts build to burning, grinding sludge of the highest order.

Undersmile's crowning achievement is Anchor, their heaviest and slowest offering. Vocals circle listeners like playground bullies poking at your ribs. Guitars hover as helpless spirits dissolve. Rhythm is held back in a factory churning out smoggy misery. A revved up surrender counters the sea of doom we've floated in for twelve minutes. You're gonna love this.

Undersmile perpetuate a hazy acceptance of the unnatural; a slow bounce through a dark underbelly you've managed to thus far ignore. Let them chew up half your morning and see if you're able to shake it. I suppose Halloween's essentially here, so maybe you can treat this like the best of horror films. Enjoy it, nervously laugh through it, and ultimately hope it won't keep you up tonight. But like any staple of the horror canon, these tracks won't let you rest easy.

...While visions of Undersmile danced in their heads...




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