Written by: The Administrator
What, dear reader, is more classically and quintessentially Sleeping Village Reviews behavior than dropping a review for an album that came out more than 12 months ago? I mean, come on. This is embarrassing. We slumbering scribes are notoriously--and demonstrably--bad at finishing stuff we started, but instead of letting this half-completed writeup die in the drafts, I thought it would be worthwhile to revisit and finally complete. Needless to say, I apologize to Bog Monkey for the extreme tardiness. This album is very good and merited a more prompt review. In any case, better late than never, I suppose. So. Bog Monkey. A fuzzed out and swampy doom/sludge/stoner trio out of Atlanta. They released their debut album back in early March of 2023, and I consider it to be one of the better exemplars of the genre released last year. It also features one of my favorite album covers of 2023--purple swamp, simian skeletons, and ooze is an aesthetic holy trifecta as far as this scribe is concerned--but that's another story. The music itself is pretty damn addicting, and notably feels quite unique in a world where a new stoner doom band seemingly pops up on a daily basis. Bog Monkey's homegrown concoction utilizes a little hardcore attitude and a lot of garage-esque grit. They almost seem to be a noisy homegrown rock band disguised as a doom outfit, and as a result their songwriting relies more on hard rockin' fun than a more straightforward or predictable stoner vibe.
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Written by: The Administrator
Doom and thrash might not be the most common (or expected) bedfellows, but there's a certain appeal to the confluence of, say, Motörhead's breakneck bombast and Sleep's fuzzy weight. On their debut 4-track EP–Thrice Majestic, for those taking notes–LA's own The Cimmerian taps into the implicit speedy thrust and plodding gravitas of component genre parts, riding the pendulum betwixt the two with a delightful barbarism. The tracks herein do an excellent job of maintaining variation in terms of sonic makeup, which makes avoiding a track-by-track analysis difficult. It also makes selecting a favorite track near-impossible, as everything feels fresh and essential to the overall picture. In that spirit, let's dive right in!
Written by: The Administrator
I love when the comments under a release on Bandcamp demonstrate a unified point of view. In the case of Here Comes Hell, the debut 4-track EP from WARPSTORMER, that point of view across the listening base is pretty damn clear. In a word: this thing has riffs. Riffs on riffs on (dare I say) more riffs. As it happens, I'm a bit of a riff connoisseur myself, and after listening to this EP for the third time today, I find myself agreeing with the consensus. This thing packs 'em in and unleashes 'em with the confidence of a seasoned act and the haste of a band excited to parade their entire arsenal in a single 20 minutes span. That said, the four tracks here are quite varied. The first three lean in varying degrees towards the thrashier end of the self-described "stoner-thrash" genre tag, and closer "Reap What You've Sown (Devourer)" carries itself with a slower and more melancholic air. WARPSTORMER serve up a very nice mix of elements, and their willingness to shake up the pace and mood demonstrates potential for a wide array of sight and sounds in subsequent work. I certainly hope a full album of this stuff is on the horizon...but let's not get ahead of ourselves here. While the future of the band is indeed exciting, Here Comes Hell deserves time to shine on the basis of its own merits. |
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