Towards the end of 2016, Canadian doom merchants The White Swan unleashed their debut EP. Although just offering the discerning riff-junkie just three tracks, on ‘Anubis’, Mercedes Lander and her crew of heavyweight sludge lovers proved that quality always wins out over quality. Between the band’s own ‘Blood’ – a perfect fusion of heaviness and an odd, treacly psychedelia – and the heaviest version of Wings’ ‘Jet’ ever – hearing is believing – the release was an instant classic. Several months on, their eagerly awaited follow up doesn’t so much pick up where the previous tracks left off, but tries its utmost to smash the previous efforts into smithereens [in this case, meaning a thousand pieces; at no point do The White Swan attempt to put their heaviest stamp upon anything written by Pat DiNizio, but it might be a fun idea…]
Tag Archives: sludge
EMPTYBROOK – Emptybrook EP
Summer in Finland is short. Very short, apparently. Maybe that’s why this band have chosen a moniker that at once conjures images of nature, only to couple the pastoral visions with the idea of something lacking. There’s no babbling brook here, no salmon leaping…just emptiness. It’s the near perfect choice of name as it turns out, as an empty brook suggests dashing hopes. Maybe it’s those dashed hopes that have made these four Finns so scathing, since Emptybrook’s music attacks with a scowl, a hardened vocal and an echoing reverb that’s deeply unnerving.
MORAG TONG – Through Clouded Time EP
Having worked hard at creating meaty and reverbed sludge metal perfection on stages across the south of England and beyond, London’s Morag Tong entered the studio to lay down a few tracks at the tail end of 2015. The resultant EP, ‘Through Clouded Time’, released at the beginning of the new year, presents four numbers of sheer weightiness that not only act as a great snapshot of Morag Tong’s purer musical intents, but also instantly asserts itself as an underground sludge classic.
HERIOT – World Collapse EP
Since some bands can forge decade long careers without even attracting a sniff of attention from mainstream press, the fact that Heriot gained positive press from Kerrang! magazine within a year of formation, meant that their future career looked very bright indeed. Judging by the Swindon based band’s second EP, the appropriately titled ‘World Collapse’, it’s fairly easy to see why they’d become press worthy at such an important time in their growth as a band: they play bigger riffs than most and their musical style absolutely crushes.
KUROKUMA – Advorsus EP
There have been a vast number of bands and musicians to come out of Sheffield over the years: Arctic Monkeys, Joe Cocker, Human League, Pulp, Def Leppard and ABC are arguably the most successful, but doom metal trio Kurokuma are almost without doubt the heaviest. These guys don’t just mean business – they’re coming to smash you into oblivion with an intensity that is truly impressive.