DEAD VOID ~ Volatile Forms (2022)

I've just sat through the entirety of  Volatile Forms the debut full length from Danes Dead Void and I feel that the next time I go outside I'll be forced to ring the Leper Bell shouting "Unclean" to everyone I meet such is the unadulterated toxicity of the turgid doom death. If any album has leprosy this is the one. Cut through the choking gloom and you're assailed by a maelstrom of negativity, emotionally bereft, like staring into the eyes of a Golem. There are few bands that take doom and death in equal parts and mould both into a danse macabre but Dead Void  has succeeded, creating its own Frankenstein monster shambling from track to heaving track.

File under A for Apocalyptic

ARES KINGDOM ~ In Darkness at Last (2022)

US death metal relentless in its savagery. In Darkness At Last the latest album by Ares Kingdom matches the tradition of the bands earlier catalogue of releases of not allowing any room to breathe. Its a full on thrashing death experience. Place the cursor anywhere on any track and you'll be torn apart by a landmine of incendiary riffing.

File under V for Vicious.

ABÖRIGEN ~ Misantrop​í​a (2022)

Misantropia begins with a blast of feedback overlaid with creepy, skeletal off kilter piano that slowly becomes more manic until the first huge blast of deathgrind mows you down, a killer opening to a totally killer album right to the end of the very last track which, incidentally, is a Napalm Death cover. Misantropia really is a relentless album, crusty, with a vein of blackness running all the way through it. What I particularly love about it is the length of some of the tracks averaging around four minutes, lengthy for this type of music. What this does is allow the crust, death, black and grind to congeal into a thick bludgeoning sludge.

File under F for Filth

DEATHSTORM ~ Blood Beneath The Crypts (2016)

Most thrash bands can be labelled within a particular narrow band whether it be Bay Area, Crossover of 'sounding like' Slayer, Exodus, Kreator etc and thats fine with me as long as it gets my head nodding and feet tapping. What elevates Deathstorm ( The Austrian version) above the majority of its peers is the fact that this band never rests on its laurels in one place. The tempo shifts from one album to the next, track by track, all slay mercilessly whether slashed to pieces by speed, chopped up and diced by mid tempo crunch or simply dragged to your knees by death metal influences.

There is a three track demo cassette ( Swarming ) due in November through Dying Victims Productions that brings yet another chamelionic shift, this time into the era of late 80's American thrash with a slightly rawer sound akin to Dream Death circa Journey Into Mystery.

DEATHRATTLE PODCAST DIRTY 30 ~ A Sludge Playlist

 ** DOWNLOAD THE PLAYLIST**

https://www.podomatic.com/.../2022-09-06T12_59_57-07_00

It's surprisingly difficult to compile a playlist of purely 'sludge' bands such has been the genres evolution over the years so this playlist will often step into the realm of doom, stoner and 'post' sludge. I've chosen bands of various levels of obscurity in the hope that you discover something new that has been lost in the passage of time.

The Playlist ~ 

AAPOAA (Pre Graves At Sea) ~ Peasants ~ EP (2013)

Ba'al ~ An Orchestra Of Flies ~ Ellipsism (2020)

Cairns - Sludge Doom from France ~ We Are A Spit In Your Booze ~ Cairns (2020)

Damned To Earth ~ Down In The Basement ~ Damned To Earth (2021)

EARTH SHIP ~ Catharsis ~ Iron Chest (2016)

Facedowninshit ~ Rough Sleep ~ Nothing Positive, Only Negative (2006)

Gale ~ We Could Have Been Gods ~ Gale (2019)

THE HAG ~ Black Widow Woman And Her Shiny Knife Party ~ Gasoline Arms (2011)

I, THE UNLORD ~ 1000 Gallons Of Piss Turned To Gold ~ Praise The Most Dead (2012)

JAGGED MOUTH ~ Fallen To Incarnadine Loam ~ Louthing (2016)

Kalibos ~ Colossus ~ Hexa (2017)

LACRA ~ Tromen ~ Imperio De Cuervos (2015)

MAG ~ Pragneinie ~ Mag (2020)

NAGA ~ Hyele ~ Inanimate ( 2016)

O.D.R.A ~ Tkacze ~ V (2017)

PADRE LOBO ~ Batalla ~ Padre Lobo (2015)

Quallus ~ Old Fear ~ Quallus (2019)

Remembrance Of Lysergik Funeral ~ 1604 ~ American Tape (2012)

S.L.U.G ~ Bleeding ~ S.L.U.G (2013)

Taigan the band ~ ULie ~ Pure Manure (2021)

UFO GESTAPO ~ Peace Crap ~ Ufo Gestapo (2008)

VAEE SOLIS ~ Ennoia ~ Adversarial Light (2015)

Waft ~ G.C.C.G ~ Chronolith (2015)

Twelve Boar ~ Quint~ Pitworthy (2015)

YANARI ~ No Moral High Ground ~ Marine Leg (2018)

ZATOKREV ~ Reveal ~ (2007)

ABISMO ~ Terremoto Cranial ~ Demo (2011)

BAD ANGLE ~ Seriously Considering Going Back To Drugs ~ Bad Angle (2013)

CANOPY ~ Life Is Just Terrible ~ EP (2015)

DAMNWEEVIL ~ Human Insult ~ It's Always Darkest Before It Goes Pitch Black ( 2009)

REINCARNATED ~ Of Boötes Void Death Spell (2022)

There's a new sickness spreading from Thailand and its in the lifeless form of  Reincarnated. This is grim, cadaverous doom death, the ghastly thing under the bed! I wouldn't be at all surprised if this had been recorded in a mausoleum with the vocalist sealed in a coffin. What I particularly love about Of Boötes Void Death Spell is the fact that there is no compromise between the two genres fused together,  the death metal aspect of the album is suitably horrific while the doom entity definitely dooms, mixed together it's the aural equivalent of a freakish Victorian circus exhibit.

GNASCH ~ SPITE AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL (2022)

UK sludge so bloated its guts have burst and spilled onto the floor. Spite At The End Of The Tunnel by Gnasch has turned knuckledragging into a new life form. Riffs are dense but  glutinously sloppy, it feels as though you're drowning in offal. The album is tuned low but when you're convinced that Gnasch can't drop any lower, or slower, the trapdoor opens and cerebral hypoxia kicks in.