VIDEO PREMIERE: Chicago's Of Wolves return with "Heart To Hand"

Hailing from Chicago, Illinois Of Wolves play a raw and heavy blend of punk and metal from stoner sludge to hardcore & post punk. Releasing their debut record “Evolve” in May 2013, it was a caustic, white-knuckle roller-coaster ride, fueled by a righteous fury at the world around them.  An album full of skull crushing riffs and lumbering bass pierced with a load of heavy grinding monster beats and stomping blasts that open up like bursts of machine-gun fire.  This devastatingly intense band write songs to deal with stress, disillusionment, social injustice.

6 years have now passed since their debut and Of Wolves have a new album in the can which is set for release via Cimmerian Shade Recordings next year.  Given the fact that we loved their debut so much, it was a no brainer when we were asked to debut a brand new track  and today at THE SLUDGELORDwe’re stoked to be premiere “Heart to Hand” which you can check out below.  More new about their sophomore will be announced when we know more.  In the meantime, turn the volume to 11 and watch your speaker die!!!

Band info: Facebook || Bandcamp

REVIEW: Come to Grief / Fistula & Fistula / -(16)- [Splits]

By: Ernesto Aguilar


Album Type: Split

Date Released:29/12/2017

Label: PATAC Records

 

“Come to Grief | Fistula” & “Fistula | -(16)-“ Split 7”//CS//DD track listing

1). Come to Grief – “Take Me In My Sleep”

2). Fistula– “Confusion”

1). Fistula– “Mongoloid” (Devo)

2). -(16)- “Complications” (Killing Joke)

The Review:

In a year of conflict and uncertainty, one thing came out clear as anything: legendary Ohiosludge crew Fistuladid not piss away the end of 2017 binge watching garbage on Netflix. Nope. In fact, the band dove headfirst into creating new music. It is featured as part of a new seven-inch series, where the band is paired up with other veteran acts – Maine four-piece Come to Grief and Los Angeles long-timers -(16)-for sonic adventures aplenty.

The pair of singles begins with Come to Grief's entry, a dense and dangerous cut built around Jonathan Hébert's searing vocals and the brawny guitar of Terry Savastano. "Take Me In My Sleep" is deceptively powerful. From the slow climb of its opening, Come to Grief maintains a thick and ominous rhythm throughout this song. As fans may recall, the quartet arose from the ashes of the 1990s group Grief, reconstituting to some range the songs for that group written by Savastano, and which include former Griefdrummer Chuck Conlon. However, it was evident even early on that the new incarnation is not a tribute band, but an altogether intriguing evolution of the progenitor's classic sound. Much credit for this growth is to some degree owed to the presence of Hébert behind the microphone. His voice demands your attention and obedience, with a wiry snarl and dexterous attack. With a foundation ballasted by Conlon and bassist Tim Simpson, "Take Me In My Sleep" is a lethal selection for this seven-inch.

Speaking of veteran experience, -(16)- makes their presence felt on the second seven-inch, employing its renowned sludge prowess with slicing riffs, grave soil dark bass and vocals that rattle you like kicking a pile of spent bullet shells across a concrete floor. In the hands of -(16)-, a song by iconic post-punk clan Killing Joke is not just a particularly savage cover, but a fearless reimagining of some of the English band's best work. The showcase player here is Bobby Ferry, whose guitar plows through this originally brisk paced song with a hint of speed yet still faithful to what -(16)- does best. Similarly Cris Jerue's singing takes a page from Jaz Coleman, yet blows open the doors to put his band's stamp on this rendition. With Barney Firks on bass and Dion Thurman at the drum kit, -(16)-shows new and stalwart fans just how effectively the group is able to rejuvenate this material.

These tracks – and the sheer quality of the performers – taken in, it is evident that Fistulahas quite a high bar to meet on what is a marquee placement for the band.

If you are familiar with the Devo song Fistula covers on that split with -(16)-,the 1994 track is one of those sublime post-rock/electronic hybrids that made the band innovators so visionary, as well as one of the best known Rock & Roll Hall of Fame snubs. It is a bold choice; its early-math rock guitar and slinky synths could be hard to pull off for a band loved for its sludge. Where it works best is when Fistula are faithful to the original, with just that hint of vacant eyed stare that made them such a musical terror. With a similarly terse beginning, it's into a straight-ahead mashing of guitars and boiling-over vocals. Fistula are wildly accurate with their strikes – a driving rhythm section is met at flourishes by effects, growls punctuate the mood with urgency, and, in less than three-and-a-half minutes, the squad owns the song.

It is its original music, however, where Fistula delivers its real coup de grace. "Contusion" is its selection from the split with Come to Grief, and it delivers a delicious mix of sludge, with a hint of hardcore and doom. A pulsing bass courtesy of Greg Peel undergirds the impenetrable riffs, while Dan Harrington's anguished vocals command your focus. As a quintet, the group uses all its instruments to their fullest potential; dual guitars, drums and bass stretch out across the nearly six-minute track and set a pensive mood, only to recoil with fury again and again as the song cranks up and finally down. You have a lot to look forward to in the next release from one of sludge's best.

Both Splits are available here

Band info: fistula || -(16)- || Come To Grief

ALBUM REVIEW: Godflesh - "Post Self"

By: Mark Ambrose

Album Type: Full-length

Date Released: 17/11/2017

Label: Avalanche Recordings

It may be a disturbing, challenging last will and testament of humanity’s futurist hopes and dreams, but “Post Self” is an invigorating, complex, and honest piece of industrial metal.  Perhaps most importantly, in a genre that can be glutted with repetitive speed metal riffs and samples of shouting despots, Godflesh stands as one of the smartest bands working today.

“Post Self” CD//DD//LP track listing

1). Post Self

2). Parasite

3). No Body

4). Mirror of Finite Light

5). Be God

6). The Cyclic End

7). Pre Self

8). Mortality Sorrow

9). In Your Shadow

10). The Infinite End

The Review:

               

Crack into any futurist, or hell, even a Neil DeGrasse Tyson wiki-hole, and all sorts of wild speculative bullshit will have you thinking we’re on the cusp of some magical utopia – a paradigm shift, or line of code, or thinkfluential bleeding edge app from unlocking the Jetsons vision of tomorrow.  The transhumanist vision of Ray Kurzweil, the cult of revelatory Singularity, is just the latest, scientific positivist take on apocalyptic rapture snake oil.  With the right tech, the right drive, the right “difficult geniuses” at the helm, we’re all going to beat death and toil and everything desperate and mind-numbing about modern life and finally have the time to bask in our uploaded consciousness for all eternity.  Nevermind the endless sequence of fuckups modernity seems to display – the relentless argument AGAINST letting mankind extend its petty bullshit ad infinitum.  If any band were to write the soundtrack for humanity’s defeat at the inexorable reality of death, it’s Godflesh.  And with “Post Self”, their eighth album, and second since reforming in 2010, Justin Broadrick and G.C. Green have crafted a distinctly industrial, metallic slab of nihilistic dread.  A haunting eulogy for a species intent on extinguishing all its potential in a solipsistic pursuit of immortality.

               

From the highly processed guitar crunch, to the inverted disco backbeat, the opening title track sets the stage for a Godflesh album that lurks in the niches of queasy anxieties.  There are few fully rocking industrial metal moments in “Post Self”, and that decision seems to be a conscious one – Broadrick and Green acknowledged they hewed closer to a foundation of early industrial and post-punk, and the ties to Throbbing Gristle, Public Image Ltd. and Einsturzende Neubautenare, perhaps, more distinct than they’ve ever been.  On a heavily dissonant track like “Parasite”, the wheedling guitar lead sounds so contrary, so confrontational, so “anti-hook” that it can’t possibly be “rocking”.  The doomy “Be God”, with vocals so processed that they sound like an entirely inhuman language, is remarkably underscored by a dreampop guitar coda, with defiantly beautiful tones that ebb and flow like an ocean of battery acid.  The shoegaze sound bleeds into “The Cyclic End”.  The clean vocals are a welcome respite in the warped hellscape of Godflesh’s “Post Self” – but of course the sweetness has to curdle by the finale.

               

“Pre Self”opens with one of the most harrowing guitar licks I’ve ever heard.  A solitary, echoing clang set against an ambient background, Broadrick adds a simple beat and clean vocal litany that, as I listened looking out across the polluted industrial skyline of Newark, was as depressing as a Lars Von Trier marathon.  This amplification of loneliness runs through the album, but is sometimes obscured by soundscapes or effects.  The deranged surf guitar of “In Your Shadow”, or the psychedelic tones of “Mortality Sorrow” can sometimes sideline the hopelessness at “Post Self’s” core.  But with the restrained synthetic strings of “The Infinite End”, the message is clear: this is a requiem mass for a humanity already doomed.  The sparks of soul or individuality within the ten preceding tracks are ghosts in a machine – corrupted, decayed remnants of mankind.  The Singularity is a pipe dream – we have already encoded ourselves into our digital tombstones, and after we leave a used husk of a planet, these vague, screeching entreaties for meaning and salvation will remain.  It may be a disturbing, challenging last will and testament of humanity’s futurist hopes and dreams, but “Post Self” is an invigorating, complex, and honest piece of industrial metal.  Perhaps most importantly, in a genre that can be glutted with repetitive speed metal riffs and samples of shouting despots, Godflesh stands as one of the smartest bands working today.  If they can look to their past and still offer an album so prescient and confrontational, there are a few things we can still be optimistic about in 2018.

“Post Self” is available here

Band info: bandcamp|| facebook

ALBUM REVIEW: Northless - "Last Bastion of Cowardice"

By: Ernesto Aguilar

Album Type: Full Length

Date Released:17/11/2017

Label: Gilead Media |

Halo of Flies

Northless’ chemistry has gotten better, and the compositions are much more rich and the effect is nothing less than absolutely crushing.  If you enjoy intelligent sludge, "Last Bastion of Cowardice" is for you.

 

"The Last Bastion of Cowardice" CD//DD//DLP track listing

1. The Origin Of Flames

2. Godsend

3. The Devil In Exile

4. Slave To A Scorched Earth

5. Their Blood Was Always Mine

6. Never Turn Your Back On The Dead

7. Extinction Verse

8. Last Bastion of Cowardice

9. Our Place In The Dirt

10. Rotting Days

The Review:

The National Alliance on Mental Illness notes that one in five adults in the United States experiences mental illness in a given year, while one in 25 will experience a serious mental illness in a given year that substantially interferes with or limits one or more major life activities. We've seen these issues played out again and again on the national stage, often in the form of violence. However, tragedies are only the hint at a much more widespread problem.

Now 10 years into its career, Milwaukee, Wisconsin’s Northless has continually captured hopelessness in its blackened, noisy sludge. Their 2011 album "Clandestine Abuse," 2013's "World Keeps Sinking" and the 2016 EP "Cold Migration"gave fans intense, personal and heavy music. Their new album, "Last Bastion of Cowardice,"delves headlong into a much darker place, telling the story of a person who discovers the futility of violence.

In his day job as a social worker, guitarist/vocalist Erik Stenglein mentioned in recent interviews the scope of mental illness he sees on a daily basis. Human suffering an institutional lack of empathy and neglect for people's most basic needs are all far more significant than you might imagine. His experience, combined with today's headlines, offer a poignant backdrop to what is, even stripped down of concept, a savage return for Northless.

Fans of Northless'work will take in its first one-third of the album with a lot of satisfaction. Drummer John Gleisner and bassist Jerry Hauppa concoct a sinister foundation for those first three songs. "The Origin of Flames" opens festivities with a tremendous noise rock/post-punk influence that enhances the sludge base of the quartet. "Godsend" slows the rhythm down as Stenglein's mammoth vocals take center stage. This cut also lets you appreciate Nicholas Elert's guitar riffs and his overall contribution to the band. As you reach "The Devil In Exile," which brings back in a bit more of the post-punk and even hardcore edge to the band, longtime listeners will appreciate the maturation process for Northless. The group's chemistry has gotten better, and the compositions are still more rich. Oh yeah, and the effect is nothing less than absolutely crushing.

Furthermore "Last Bastion of Cowardice"is effective because it weaves stories that are at once topical and still not crack-you-over-the-head political. No shots at bands who can make political music; 2017 has seen many exemplary songs that are socially conscious. Northlessjust happens to be the strongest at creating a mood and presenting songwriting that everyone can relate to in many a fashion. Without spoiling more of the story, Stenglein and company are faithful to telling their story through the tracks. "Their Blood Was Always Mine" is tightly wound lyrically. If you enjoy intelligent sludge, "Last Bastion of Cowardice" is for you.

"The Last Bastion of Cowardice" is available hereand here

Band info: bandcamp || facebook

ALBUM REVIEW: Pontiak - "Dialectic of Ignorance"

By: Victor Van Ommen

Album Type: Full Length

Date Released: 24/03/2017

Label: Thrill Jockey

“Dialectic of Ignorance” CD//DD//LP track listing:

1). Easy Does It

2). Ignorance Makes Me High

3). Tomorrow is Forgetting

4). Hidden Prettiness

5). Youth and Age

6). Dirtbags

7). Herb Is My Next Door Neighbor

8). We’ve Fucked This Up

The Review:

Discordant, heady riffing to the groove of a monotonous drum beat while a down and out singer gets lost in his own reverb are the building blocks for Pontiak’s new album, “Dialectic of Ignorance.” Dark and gloomy are key words here and though the music may not be heavy, it’s certainly weighty.

Such a post-punk stoner-gloom approach is rather consuming, and if you allow yourself to get lost in it all, Pontiakwill swallow you up with their heavy handed rhythms. The drummer’s control on the bell of his ride is second to none. The constant pinging may be “too much” at times, but that’s also the point. This is how Pontiak walks that fine line of over-indulgence without losing focus on the task at hand which, in case you forgot, is to swallow the listener whole.

If that’s your bag, then this album is highly recommended. Don’t rush through it; let the tunes come to you. That’s how they’ll make the most impact.

“Dialectic of Ignorance” is available here

Band info: bandcamp|| facebook