When you've been immersed in underground metal for a long time, there are certain areas of the globe that hold a special place above all others. For me, Finland rules the roost when it comes to old school doom/death, The UK revels in hateful, noisy sludge with Iron Monkey being ground zero, while Italy dominates the occult, 70's style doom sound. Throw Chile in the equation for some of the heaviest sludge/doom around championed by bands such as Sangria, Bicefalo and Ocultum. Now you can add Lacra to that esteemed list. The EP 'Denial' clocks in at around 25 minutes of some of the heaviest music out there, with riffs that, if they were human, would be categorised as morbidly obese. There are no rules being broken here, throughout the EP the band never deviates from its path of total destructive inertia. Crushing is a word used way too often to describe the heaviest of songs but I can't think of a better word to describe the overwhelming mass of sound grinding you into the dirt.
ANOINTING THE SICK
Filthy Tunes For Sick People
Wednesday, November 8, 2023
Friday, October 27, 2023
LUNG ~ Volume (2023)
I write this shrouded in a heady smog of stoner doom worship, eyes and throat burning on smouldering, weed drenched riffs. The sound is gloriously expansive but the sludge influence radiates an atmosphere of suffocating toxicity, thick and choking. Volume by lung is a glimpse into the mind of the junkie's final 'trip' to inevitable burnout.
Monday, October 23, 2023
WARCRAB ~ The Howling Silence (2023)
The devastatingly heavy new album by Warcrab. An unstoppable mix of rampaging death metal fused with thick sludge creating a morass of lawless rage. There are seven intense tracks on The Howling Silence, thickset deathsludge riffs that require restraint in a straitjacket before they cause irreparable damage, mixed with dense weighty (im)pure sludge.
The final track 'Howling Silence' clocks in at over ten minutes. Now I love long tracks providing it's reasonably varied but far too often I end up disappointed because most of them peter out halfway through in a mash up of ambient nonsense. Not this track. It starts off slowly but progresses into a monstrous example of how to mould various genres of extreme metal into a single fearsome entity.
For fans of: Bolt Thrower, Crowbar, Eyehategod, 71TonMan, The Dead
Wednesday, October 11, 2023
ANOINTING THE SICK #189 ~ Stigmata Martyr
๐จ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐ป๐๐ ๐บ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐. ๐ป๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐ฏ๐๐๐๐ ๐ถ๐ ๐ฏ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐ ๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐ญ๐๐๐๐ ๐ท๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐. ๐๐๐ค๐๐ฅ๐๐๐๐ ๐ฉ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐ ๐๐ง๐๐/๐ฅ๐๐ฌ๐๐ง ๐ข๐๐ฉ๐๐ก ๐ง๐๐ก๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ฉ๐๐ง ๐ง๐๐๐ ๐๐ง๐๐ข ๐๐๐ฉ๐๐ง๐๐ฃ๐ ๐ท๐ค๐๐๐๐๐
๐ฉ๐๐๐ ๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ~
๐ญ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐ฐ๐ ๐ฉ๐๐๐๐
๐ด๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐
๐จ๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐
๐ฒ๐ฏ๐ต๐ฝ๐ด
๐ณ๐๐๐๐๐๐
๐ฒ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐
๐ฏ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐
๐ท๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐ช๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐
๐ฌ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐ท๐๐๐๐๐๐
๐ฏ๐๐๐ ๐ท๐๐๐๐๐ #4 Doom Charts (June)
๐ฑ๐๐ ๐ท๐๐๐๐๐
๐บ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐
๐ช๐๐๐๐๐๐
๐ด๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐ฝ๐๐๐๐๐
๐ซ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐
๐พ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐
๐บ๐๐๐๐
๐ด๐๐๐๐๐๐๐
๐ณ๐๐๐ ๐ฐ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐
๐ถ๐๐ ๐ซ๐๐๐๐ ๐ฉ๐๐๐๐๐๐
๐ฎ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐ซ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐จ๐๐ ๐ฉ๐๐๐๐ ๐ฏ๐๐๐๐
๐ณ๐๐๐๐๐๐ #9 Doom Charts (June
๐พ๐๐๐๐๐๐ Name Your Price (Bandcamp)
๐ฎ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐
๐บ๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐ถ๐ ๐ป๐๐ ๐ซ๐๐๐
๐ป๐ke
Friday, September 29, 2023
ANOINTING THE SICK ~ Angels vs Demons
The armies of Heaven and Hell battle for humanity's soul using extreme metal as the ultimate weapon.
ELUSIVE GOD VS ELECTRIC LUCIFER
ARMOURED ANGEL VS DEMON CLEANER
DUSTED ANGEL VS DEMON EYE
INFESTED ANGEL VS KIEF DEMON
MORBID ANGEL VS WEED DEMON
WรMIT ANGEL VS DEMON & ELEVEN CHILDREN
ANGEL CORPSE VS DEMON INCARNATE
ANGEL MORGUE VS DEMON LUNG
*DOWNLOAD HERE*
https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/anointingthesick/episodes/2023-09-29T10_35_20-07_00
CEASED SUNFIRE ~ The Divide (2023)
Mountainous riffs and a pummelling rhythm section combine to create a tectonic shifting of Finnish stoner sludge. Any influence of weed however has been crushed by sheer brute force. There is a surprising amount of groove punctuated by some well executed lead guitar work on The Divide but it tip toes between slabs of swollen sludge.
Tuesday, September 26, 2023
JUST BEFORE DAWN ~ A War Too Far (2023)
A full frontal assault of Swedish death metal swathed from start to finish with incendiary riffs dripping phosphrous. With leanings toward Bolt Thrower, A War Too Far is an overwhelming assault on the senses, as merciless as it is brutal. The nine murderous tracks on offer combine into a death metallic war of attrition with no prisoners taken and corpses ground into the mud and dirt. A War Too Far isn't uptempo, for all its ferocity, it doesn't revel in the glorification of bloodshed but instead sounds wearily accepting of the futility of it all, which makes this album sound grimmer and more realistic of the horrors of the subject matter.
Time to hoist the white flag of surrender before you're overwhelmed.