ALBUM REVIEW & SONG PREMIERE: Widows - "Oh Deer God"

By: Ben Fitts

Album Type: Full Length

Date Released: 14/04/2017

Label: UMC Recordings

The strongest part of “Oh Deer God” are the bloated, swaggering riffs that invade every one of the album’s seven tracks. The riffs loom over the music like a giant surveying a small village, resolve in just the right way, and give the album a raw, beefy strength that makes it so enjoyable. At just under half an hour total, “Oh Deer God” is a brief, but delightful venture into where vaporous desert rock meets viscous sludge metal.

“Oh Deer God” track listing:

1. Oh Deer God

2. Caffeine and Hatred

3. Heresy and Venom

4. Blue Tuna

5. Ride To The Realm Of Coitus

6. Baron Greenback Blues

7. Germanium Buzz

The Review:

A typical desert rock band can teleport the listener into the driver’s seat of a grimy dune buggy as it glides through scorched sands and blisters in the rays of a too near sun. On their 2012 debut album, “Death Valley Dutchess”, English quartet Widows recreated these typical desert rock aesthetics rather admirably. However the band’s sophomore effort, “Oh Deer God”, sees Widows push their desert rock sound into sludge territory, existing in a wonderful sweet spot between the two styles. While “Death Valley Dutchess” might bring the listener to the previously described dune buggy in the desert, “Oh Deer God” rips you out of your seat and hurls you into a gurgling, alien tar pit crawling with creatures that exist only on the outskirts of human imagination.

“Oh Deer God”is still brimming with all the indolent rhythmic feels, bluesy riffing and smokey guitar tones that are the calling cards of desert rock, but it also drips with all the rancor, harshness and hostility that make a great sludge album. Tracks such as “Blue Tina”, “Baron Greenback Blues” and the album’s closer, “Germanium Buzz” show that Widows still retain their aptitude for mid-tempo, blues inflected stompers. However, “Oh Deer God” also sees the band pushing higher speeds and playing with more propulsive rhythms, as evidenced by the crushing title track that opens the album and the hardcore nodding, minute and eleven second long bruiser “Caffeine and Hatred”.

The strongest part of “Oh Deer God” are the bloated, swaggering riffs that invade every one of the album’s seven tracks. The riffs loom over the music like a giant surveying a small village, resolve in just the right way, and give the album a raw, beefy strength that makes it so enjoyable. There is hardly a forgettable one on the whole album. The standout track of the album may be its fourth number, “Blue Tina”. Beginning with a grooving, blues based guitar riff and sparse percussion that could be the soundtrack to selling your soul to the space devil at the galactic crossroads, the track builds quickly as the band comes in at full, pummeling force. Built around the strongest riff on an album defined by strong riffs, “Blue Tina” is four minutes and twenty seconds (draw your own conclusions) of stoner rock paradise. At just under half an hour total, “Oh Deer God” is a brief, but delightful venture into where vaporous desert rock meets viscous sludge metal.     

Check out the amazing title track "Oh Deer God" below

Band info: facebook