sludge metal

Record #854: Helms Alee – Keep This Be the Way (2022)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Helms Alee has always been unpredictable. Even besides the triple-vocal attack—which ranges from throaty screams to dreamy cleans to riot grrrl-esque shouts—they have always implemented a number of styles into their brand of heavy, weird music. I first discovered them on a Wikipedia article about sludge metal fusions, describing them as “Sludge/shoegaze,” even though they themselves simply call themselves “grunge” (probably just because they’re from Seattle).

But they have never been as fearlessly inventive and monstrously heavy as they are on Keep This Be the Way. Nonsense title aside, this is a staggering album that showcases the best that Helms Alee has to offer, and pushes them into bold new territory.

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Record #848: Glassing – Twin Dream (2021)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald / 1 Comment

Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine famously adheres to the theory that when a person is subjected to high volume noise for a long enough time, they enter a zen-like state. The harsh tones and oppressive volumes transform into an almost comforting embrace, like being covered in a blanket of snow after an avalanche.

Experimental Austin metallurgists Glassing are masters of this sort of alchemy, manipulating abrasive tones to create songs that are somehow staggeringly gorgeous. While I recoiled at my early, brief brushes with the band, I was encouraged to give Twin Dream a more earnest listen.

It became one of my favorite records.

Read more at ayearofvinyl.com #glassing #postmetal #doomgaze #blackmetal #blackgaze #sludgemetal #vinyl

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Record #845: E-L-R – Vexier (2022)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

The German word “Vexier” is an odd term. It’s likely derived from the Latin “vexare” which means to plague or irritate, but it’s used in some dialects to describe a puzzle. For instance, “Vexierbild” is the term used for a double image: an innocent illustration that hides a more sinister image (the best example being “All Is Vanity” by C. Allen Gilbert).

With that in mind, it’s a more than apt title for the sophomore release of Swiss doomgazers E-L-R. The band itself is so mysterious that I can’t find any information about the members besides their initials (there are plenty of photos of the band, but they aren’t labeled). It is a deceptive album that has the initial impression of being rather subdued, but closer inspection reveals a far darker album lurking beneath the surface—not unlike a Vexierbild.

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Record #843: Absent In Body – Plague God (2022)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

There’s been no shortage of “Pandemic Records.” Whole hosts of artists have attempted to put our shared angst to tape, and if I’m honest, I’m starting to grow weary of it—and I’m even in the process of recording one myself.

But when it comes to Plague God, the devastating debut from post/sludge/industrial metal supergroup Absent In Body, diving back into the darkest parts of the last two years isn’t just tolerable—it feels essential. The collective trauma of the Covid pandemic—and all the political and spiritual upheaval that ran adjacent to it—is a heavy weight to bear, but Absent In Body seems tailor-made for the task. It’s as radical as it is reverent, using crushing heaviness, dark atmospheres, and delicate passages as a canvas for a portrait of mourning and celebration, grief and hope, devotion and doubt.

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Record #803: Melvins – Hostile Ambient Takeover (2002)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

A couple posts ago, I made a vague parenthetical statement about whether there has ever been an album that has encapsulated the full essence of Melvins. I suggested that The Trilogy—the three-album run of The Maggot’s sludge-doom, The Bootlicker’s avant-pop, and The Crybaby’s covers and collaborations—might have been the closest they’ve ever gotten to offering up a concise CV.

But I must confess: I said that knowing full well that it was a lie. Because there is one album that—in my opinion at least—perfectly captures exactly who the band is and what they do.

That album is Hostile Ambient Takeover, a title that serves to describe both the eight tracks on this disc and the Melvins as a whole. They are hostile. They are ambient. And they are taking over.

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Record #801: Melvins – The Maggot (1999)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald / 1 Comment

By 1999, Melvins were already a band of legendary repute. Their uncompromising adherence to noisy rock and roll experimentation that blurred the line between grunge and sludge metal had already landed them—and lost them—a major label deal. The late Kurt Cobain had already called them one of his favorite bands, and they had already influenced scores of similarly noisy and experimental acts, such as Japan’s Boris, who are themselves named after a Melvins song.

And in 1999, Melvins released one of the most ambitious projects of their career: a trilogy of albums that each leaned into a pocket of their sound. The Maggot is the first and most aggressive of these albums, and even in a catalog as harsh and abrasive as Melvins’, it is a challenging album. But that challenge brings a great reward, because it might also be one of their best.

Read more at ayearofvinyl.com #melvins #sludgemetal #grunge #avantgarde #noiserock #vinyl

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Record #791: Amenra – De Doorn (2021)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Media is an interesting thing.

Take for instance De Doorn (Flemish for “The Thorn”) the seventh album from Belgian sludge metallurgists Amenra. It is by all respects a grave and serious album: these songs were written as part of a project commissioned by local government officials as a commemoration of the one-hundredth anniversary of the First World War, a presence still uniquely felt in their region, dotted with bunkers, trenches, and the lingering loss of ancestors. It is a poignant look at grief, mourning, and the scars of war.

And yet, I discovered this album when professional wrestler Malakai Black used a track as his entrance music.

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Record #772: Kowloon Walled City – Grievances (2015)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

There is a misconception I see sometimes that the better a song is, the more difficult it is to play. After all, anybody can write a simple song, but it takes someone with real talent to write something complicated. It takes real talent to play an intricate solo. It takes real talent to write a song with lots of different chords and multiple time changes.

However, there are numerous examples across the world of recorded music that disprove that theory. Bands like The Ramones or The Jesus and Mary Chain.

Add to that list Kowloon Walled City, a Oakland CA outfit that creates huge monoliths of sludge metal without much complication. While other bands might be tempted to speed these songs up or fill them with gratuitous guitar solos.

Kowloon Walled City resists these urges, trusting the strength of the crawling riffs and passionate songwriting to make Grievances a chilling statement—and rightly so.

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Record #767: BIG|BRAVE – Vital (2021)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald / 1 Comment

For someone who is as heavily into glacial, sludgy, female-fronted metal as I am, it might come as a shock to hear that I never heard about Big Brave until a couple months ago when I found myself with an advanced copy of their newest album to review. But within seconds of the opening track “Abating the Incarnation of Matter,” I was already on their site ordering this record. Immediately after I finished the review, I tracked down a copy of their earlier album A Gaze Among Them.

All that to say. This record is great.

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Record #755: BIG|BRAVE – A Gaze Among Them (2019)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Anybody who has even the most passing familiarity with this blog can tell that there are a few musical tropes that I cannot resist. Among them are crushing walls of sound, ominous, glacial tempos, lush atmospheres, and emotional female voices.

And Big Brave from Montreal delivers all these in spades, combining each of my favorite colors into a stunning landscape that is at once sonically crushing and achingly gorgeous.

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