“Goblinsmoker’s Toad King began a narrative arc about amphibious forest dwellers who are served by a goblin underclass. A Throne In Haze… is the second installment of the planned trilogy. While fun, this story is superfluous, since the lyrics are sparse and delivered in an unintelligible blackened rasp. A Throne In Haze... is a trim 26 minutes over three songs, and it’s all riffs, baby.” Let them eat riffs.
“Vore, for the blissfully unaware amongst us, is one of the stranger fetishes the internet has given a home. It is the fetish for being consumed. Yes, like in Bloodbath’s “Eaten.” In their infinite wisdom, the internet has even made sub-categories to such a specific fetish, namely soft vore (being swallowed whole) and hard vore (to see your body ripped and torn). Now, I don’t know why Birmingham’s Opium Lord decided to name their sophomore album after this infamous fetish. Their nasty, noisy sludge is about as arousing as battlefield amputations.” Mouthful of noise.
“I have my own boxes to check as I look for the next Cherd friendly album, so when patterns emerge, I take note. Recent positive experiences with doomy, noise tinged post-metal from the United Kingdom packaged in black and white cover art, namely Sūrya and Bismuth, led me to take a chance on Torpor’s Rhetoric of the Image. Will the sophomore effort from this three-piece keep the hitting streak alive?” Post-gambling.
“What constitutes summer music for you? In my case, I tend to gravitate towards music that plays well on car trips, meaning I blast stoner and sludge above average during the times of sunshine. These genres often have the locomotive rhythms, simple structures and addictive riffing that allow me to practice finger-drumming on the steering wheel and terrible singing, preferably with the windows rolled down so everyone in a 30-yard radius gets to enjoy with me.” Road rage and hot days.
“‘Dark’ is my thing. Dark dreams, dark thoughts, and dark music make me who I am. For most that know me, this comes as no surprise. For those that think you know me: surprise! But, as of late, my dark place has become a living hell. I could always escape there when things got tough and it was a place I could go to avoid judgment from this pathetic, untrusting world. But, four months ago, things turned real dark. Too dark. And the little room in my head wasn’t dark enough to handle it.” Dark music for dark minds.
“I normally don’t take the whole “new year, new me” maxim seriously at all. I mean sure, improvements are a good thing, right? But an entire overhaul of oneself is completely unnecessary. That said, my first review of the year isn’t a one-person black metal project. How novel! In fact, said review involves the words “sludge” and “Louisiana,” two words that’ll make me shove other writers here aside like Patsy Stone gunning for her favorite bottle of vodka. Yep, Slake, the debut album from Louisiana power trio Woorms, broke my combo of icy-cold bedroom blackness once and for all, and you would think that I would be a happy camper here.” From black to blues.
“Doom is inescapable. Fear of the known is the constant background buzz of human existence, in its way as strong as fear of the unknown. The knowledge of one’s doom can be a chain too heavy to bear. It’s the curse of reading your future chiseled in granite, holding a crayon. Auckland, New Zealand’s Shallow Grave make their malevolent hay with that fear.” Fear the known.
“Druglord? Methinks our illustrious overlord, Angry Metal Guy, has given me a stoner-sludge album to review. This is great for me because I really like what similar stoner-sludge bands—namely Dopethrone, Thirst Planet, and Forming the Void—have released lately. Hailing from Richmond, Virginia, Druglord take to the streets with an extra-crunchy blend of stoner-doom and sludge.” This is your brain on Druglord.
“These Kentuckians resemble something closer to the bastard offspring of Satanic Warmaster and Dead is Dead, taking traditional black metal stylings (as opposed to “weeny atmospheric emo-black”) and dragging them through deep, dark sludge.” Don’t let that sludge get on your good jeans!
“It’s always cool to see another website put down the pen the keyboard and help a band out. In this case, the good folks over at The Sludgelord have done just that by creating their own self-titled record label! For their debut, they’ve released Dismal Planet, the debut full-length by South Carolina’s sludge duo Coffin Torture.” Coffin up a lung.
