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.
Tag Archives: stream
BLACK OATH – Litanies In The Dark EP
With three full lengths and a handful of EP’s behind them, Italy’s Black Oath have built a cult following since the late noughties, been featured on a Black Sabbath tribute disc and released an underground classic in 2015’s ‘To Below and Beyond’, an album which definitely pushed the band farther up the league table. A hard act to follow, 2016’s ‘Litanies In The Dark’ EP acts as a mere distraction, plugging a gap by featuring four leftovers recorded between 2012-2015. A couple of these tracks are worthy of adding to the Oath canon, others not: as is often the way with leftovers, they are sometimes left over for a reason.
THE NEEDY SONS – Vis-A-Vis
Originally a live project where friends played cover tunes and numbers from their respective catalogues as a way of letting off steam, The Needy Sons is a Boston supergroup of sorts. Mike Gent has recorded several albums with power pop/rock outfit The Figgs, Ed Valuskas has associations with Gravel Pit and the legendary Bill Janovitz has recorded various solo albums as well as being a member of Buffalo Tom (whose ‘Big Red Letter Day’ is one of the finest albums in the history of recorded music). Augmented by Eric Anderson and with their debut album ‘Vis a Vis’ mixed in part by Mike Viola’s matey Ducky Carlisle, you could say this band got off to a good start.
THE DIFFERENCE – EP
Active from the mid to late 80s, The Difference were a progressive rock band that, while indebted to the usual influences from Rush and the big progressive hitters of the era, also tempered their sound with various other more contemporary influences – ranging from 80s pop and AOR to the tight quirks of The Police. On their 1988 EP, the coming together of older prog sounds with an eighties sharpness results in some very pleasing music that, although hampered slightly by budgetary contraints, still presents some great ideas.
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.