Sunday Sludge: Hobo

A man once approached me as I left a convenience store. In a British accent, he asked if I smoked. I replied "No, sorry," but he clearly needed more than just cancer sticks. He was carrying a backpack and wearing women's shoes. Behind the mange of his beard and in cockney delivery he explained he was "in from Denver," his van had broken down, his dog had died, and he simply needed money. I gave him a quarter and he almost seemed pissed. That's the breaks, they say.

Seven months later, when the Earth had tilted in our favor, I was pumping gas and heard soft, sooty steps. This asshole. He was at it again, but the accent was gone and he was still "In from Denver." Y'know what, man? Fuck you. Gimme back my bullets.

Maybe California's homeless are different. Santa Barbara's Hobo provide an enticing sniff of the tattered lifestyle, employing riffs and licks atop four sludge rumblers that coat your throat like sweet, sticky syrup. The Southern stomp on the band's Demo 2013 celebrates concrete pillows and more than a fair share of Mad Dog 20/20.

Hardlyfe ducks and slugs with cymbal-heavy immediacy, cracking fuzz twigs and boxing your dirge-laden ears. The swampy viscosity and hollow-corridor assertions balance guitar licks buzzing in adjacent occupancies. When the rhythm breaks, so does the bounding light. Let's cruise before night falls. But where'd we end up? The good-ol'-boy townie bar that is Ammonia sways with a thick and thorny southern groove, spiteful yet deceptively inviting and accessible. Wrapping listners in ribbons of deep-fried Confederate plucks, this track nods, taps its foot, and unfolds amid progressions and re-emerging elemental contributions.

Halfway home and the cloudy eyes are sending us into the ditch. Buzzing sludge spirals upward on PissStank, a chewy, fermented de-evolution toward the 90's grunge bass-rollers of Tad and Paw. The hill-rod singalong is kept loose and limber, jacked with elixir and impossible to pin down. There's a soft patch of underbelly, but these cacklers waste no time in throwing it onto the engine to blacken over a muddy spit 'n hiss.

Mythical Beast boasts a guitar groping that would make most second-cousins jealous. The indulgence is short-lived and revved sludge smacks of ham-fisted reality. Hairs knot, the bumps bounce, and the band never stays in any gear for too long. That's part of the appeal: these guys won't stay still. Unraveling on a torrid bass clip and an avalanche of drum stones, this closer carves its name into pink skin and smiles with swill in hand.

You won't find the stretched-out, bony fingers of post-sludge meandering or the overzealous aggression typically pulsing from sludge-filled speakers. These stumps are quick, hot, and bound to burn. This bum thumbed his way from the bayou and lost his pants out west. Hobo cook up the most palatable of sludge, grooving and stomping without over-thinking things. Dig deep for those nickels and dimes. 'Merica has kept these guys honest.


For fans of: Tad, Melvins, Weedeater
Pair with: Stone Soup Abbey Ale, New Glarus Brewing

Bandcamp | New Noise

Sunday Sludge: StoneBirds / Stangala - "Kreiz-Breizh Sessions"

I couldn't be this alliterative if I tried. Seth's Sunday Sludge featuring a StoneBirds / Stangala split? Cosmic elements are aligning and perhaps this is the universe slapping me with the most insanely unique and enjoyable split presentation I'll ever hear. There's nothing standard or pedestrian about what we're showcasing today. One act a choppy, churning stoner-sludge trio from Lorient, the other an eerie haunt of bagpiped doom by way of Quimper, this formidable French tandem leaves nothing to be desired on The Infamous Kreiz-Breizh Sessions, Vol. 1. Take it all in.

StoneBirds swing first, knocking crunch-groove tastiness square into your chest with Red Is The Sky. A bluesy southern roll, hazy stoner-fuzz passages, gravelly vocals... Are we traipsing through Western France or scorching our skin on Oklahoma's dusty panhandle roads? No matter. Thick in tone with battered, battling dual vocals, this opening track is punchy and promising. StoneBirds strip off their moss-coated skin and earn their moment in the mist. As we lead into Game Over, we drift toward our teenage basement nods. Dense and dank, this supremely sticky, smoky sludge (and its tinny tinsel mood) pulls more than a few surprises from its beard. Gargle mud, cough, and slap on a heady half-smile... coming your way is a heavy hand of warbled licks and tense bong rips.

But if StoneBirds set the standard, Stangala do a bang-up job of following suit. Earlier this year, Reg warned you'll need to "hear for yourself to discover all of the nuances." No shit! On Kemper, groove-molded celtic-stoner-doom (what?) steamrolls your expectations. Chanted vocals and an elemental tapestry of fuzz is somehow enhanced with window-shopping keys and pipes. I found myself lifted to a rainy cobblestone tip-toe through Scottish highlands rather than lacing my coffee with bourbon in my dusty den. Conversely, the uptempo stoner-thrash havoc that is Konk Kerne recoils on sweet piss-puddle drums and Byzantine howls. They quickly melt into a returning grindcore violence, bizarre and cool all at once. Its unsettling, sure. But the sneering stoner guitar is again clouded by pipes, a long breakdown that'll linger in your ears and your mind.

Not that StoneBirds can't do some haunting. A cavernous wail drapes the murky Outro Drama spookfest. The vocal is chained and well-past offended. Swirling and growling at primitive pacing, this is an absolute lumber of slow-motion psychedelia that'll plow through mountains. The tense, paranoid Red Lights can't help but be stuffed into the stagnant-stoner-swamp-sludge category. Echoed and epic, pensive and cautionary... this tale cools with buzz and clouded warnings, perhaps against the loose bass and powered reverb of Dark Passenger. Moving from semi-thick to über-viscous in the span of seconds, this bouncing sludge is contemplative and high-strung. Bury yourself with the burn, even the chippy relent is wholly staggering.

StoneBirds' 2011 full-length Slow Fly

Perhaps there was no fistfight over top-billing, simply because Stangala know how to close out an album. Christ, the triptych of Ar Stang / Evel ar re yen / St Alar el les algues hallucinogènes is an impressively diverse yet cohesive exercise in balancing departures with throwbacks. The fuzz metal absorbing directly into your skull on Ar Stang is more uptempo than you'd expect from French doom. Dense, tight, and loaded with plucks and plods, this cruiser is true to roots. The desert-rolled Kyuss influence is maximized by the massive drums on Evel, cloaked to counter the sandy slaps. As riffage buzzes and burns, screams command your ear. Laser keys, bulging rhythms, samples, sagging-tit pipes... All the elements seemingly pit this track at war with itself as it deconstructs into a spiral of spook. And finally, ominous at its closing and ear-rung at its heart is the flattening St Alar. The rumble of stoner-doom cadence and distant pinches of solid, steady bass thumbs keep this fuzz-pipe blast smoothly executed and softer than your grandma's panties. But more than the subtle sniffs, you'll love the long, heady passages punctuated by spurts of psychedelic doom.

Stangala's 2011 release Boued Tousek Hag Traou Mat All

Sludge led us here. These Sunday morning jaunts casually open with murk and mire, but rarely are they led toward such an eclectic meld of... Uh, I don't even know what to call this split. These Kreiz-Breizh sessions must've been fun to record; shit, they were fun to hear. You came for the boggy thickness. You stuck around for the stoner sensibilities. Perhaps you dipped your wick in embalming fluid before sparking up some doobage. Either way, you've been led down one trippy hill only to climb right up another. Whether these bands splinter their subsequent releases or return for Vol. 2, we'll be waiting.

Split Bandcamp | StoneBirds Facebook | Stangala Facebook | StoneBirds Bandcamp | Stangala Bandcamp | Asso-No| Stangala Soundcloud

Sunday Sludge: Shroud Eater - "Dead Ends"

Believe it or not, I've got friends who farm for a living. No, they don't harvest human organs; they work the land, feed the livestock, and gather fresh eggs to sell when they get to town. One such friend was having trouble figuring out why his dairy cows hadn't been producing. Not only that, but why were they so fucking ornery? Turns out it only takes a little standing water and some faulty low-current wiring to slowly and continually electrocute your cows to the point of non-production. I guess I'd be pissed, too.

Speaking of low, steady electric currents, Miami's Shroud Eater are back with Dead Ends, their follow-up to 2011's masterful ThunderNoise. Buzzing relentlessly and crushing at every corner, this five-track bruiser showcases once-promising up-and-comers fully hitting their stride and evolving into stoner-sludge titans. Shroud Eater's savage genre-blending sound crawls from the pits and lurches toward summits, knocking flat every hut and lean-to they cross.

Take shelter in a soggy cave as Cannibals opens the album with primitive, apocalyptic screams and scurries.  Fireball riffs rain, dropping heavier with passing moments on this hooded-prophet signal of impending despair. Standing cocksure on its own legs, Cannibals also crafts an enticing introduction to Sudden Plague. The slow churn of thick doom is met with spit-rhythm pick-up, crafting a misty aura to complement Felipe Torres' pummels. When the pendulum slows, collected moss ferments for one final awesome push.

Stoner groove meanders along the slow molten passages of Lord of the Sword. The dual vocal of Jean Saiz and Janette Valentine is a sonic bully, disparaging the newly dead beneath an awesome veil of fuzz. Teeming with drone and swampy hiss, listeners enter a misty mountain nightmare of smoke and fear. Lord whirs with more juice than a toaster tea-bagging a bathtub, and a slow crawl toward perfection documents Shroud Eater's increasingly impressive songcraft.

There's not a grain of fluff on this record. Gradual swelling comes to a head via the hovering fuzz of Tempest, where the band hit not only their most effortless gait but also their most unctuous pinnacle.  Chains dragged behind a muddy swamp cruiser break for campfire reflections, but keep your senses piqued. That gnarly purr returns to numb your skin and bleed your head. Saiz's brilliantly-executed guitar realizations leave behind the track's foggy reprieves on what promises to be the year's finest stoner-sludge moment.

Front to back thickness is prescribed on The Star and The Serpent, a sinewy closer bred of crunches and shifts. The track knocks around and is better off for it, but each element is given its banner here. Torres lost his sticks, leaving him no choice but to thump with human femurs. Valentine's bass guides the track's thorax, meeting Death's bony index finger in a sea of echoes. The heavy is soon fully uncorked, flooding the barren plains with an endless barrage of massive riffs and tight licks. Call it the perfect closeout, sure. But this one track encapsulates everything that's incredible about this band.

With Dead Ends, Shroud Eater take their largest leap and land on both feet. Cavernous despair has never been so timely or tasty, and the chilling atmospheres parallel the stomp of nebulous doom. Though Dead Ends advances the band's themes, sounds, and moods, this album is light years beyond their previous foxtrots with excellence. Page Hamilton advised "carve your niche," and this band has done just that. There's no longer a place for "Shroud Eater sound like so-and-so." We'll soon be writing "So-and-so sound like Shroud Eater."

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Sunday Sludge: Lowbau - "A Darker Shade of Blues"

Nobody takes a sick day when they're sick. When the asshole across from your cubicle is absent from work, bet your right arm he's gonna show up the next day with a rehearsed response to "how ya feelin'?" Nights get rowdy, the town slut won't leave your porch without assuring "I never do this," and your childhood buds hate their lives so much that they'll buy you that superfluous shot just to avoid being alone at 2:00am. Look, dude... I was young once, too. Sometimes it's hard to keep up, and sometimes you can't face your day because you lost your ass last night.

I've got these Sundays reserved for a fuckin' reason. If I tried pulling this shit on Tuesdays I'd have a real hard time keeping up with my own bullshit excuses. I play both victim and offender, but it's certainly a struggle I created. If it's one pint beyond a doctor's orders, I'll manage coffee and a fresh breath. But I don't know how I'm gonna handle Vienna's Lowbau. All the southern-sludge memories are rockin' my frame this morning, and A Darker Shade of Blues is painting my reality a new shade of stunned.

Contrasting influences play a role on this thirteen-track sludge rattler, but bringing them to alliance is Lowbau's blue ribbon. The meld of C.O.C., Pantera, and Alabama Thunderpussy angles and vibrant narrations will leave a tapestry of brazen imagery that few bands can authenticate. At times somber in the south, others thick in rusty fog, A Darker Shade of Blues threw itself onto the hood of my car and glared me in the eye. I don't care what you believe or what you question, Lowbau crafted a litany of both queries and responses, here offering both for the picking.

Opening on the crisp acoustic strums of 13, A Darker Shade of Blues is pregnant with promise. The instrumental opener is distant and sullen, but the sliding shifts and low bass thumbs press forward and soothe enough to quell any doubt. The steel toed double-kick of The Prosecution Rests... green-lights a coked-out aggression that trips most bands. Groove and pull-back are a clear Pantera nod, but Lowbau breed their own buzz-saw beauty. The blistered brutality is met with a furrowed brow, unlocking the riff and pacing a slow sludge that echoes with swinging-cock solos. The closing stomp-stagger showcases a power; let's call this an opus of opiates, because this southern sludge is daunting.

A Million Years of Rain just might be the fucking best song you'll hear this year. Southern slides and tripping basslines stroll through the dark drop of sludge blackness as if they've been there before. What's placid and pensive grows worn and thick. Everything works here, staggering toward a denouement loaded with everything that's fucking incredible about this band (massive riffs, leathered vocals, guitar proficiency, and low-mud basslines) striking an undeniable harmonic(a) balance.

For all of Lowbau's dick-thrust guitar, they offset the nut-pats with crunching groove, hitting hard on every facet of Modern Day Alchemist. Rhythms shadow the lyrical nastiness, grinding with distorted pullback and relatively tasty crunch for themes so gnarly. The buzzing, festering Grounded is equally as choppy, pulsing with a "teenage spirit" you left in a bottle behind your high school's bus garage. The track is low, intermittent, and dripping with just a whisper of insanity. So nobody really notices when punchy trench-warfare is carried out on a ticker-tape tapestry of guitar jizz.

Oh, and sketchy subject matter is hardly taboo for this quintet. Consider the living-room stomp of Alcoholic, for example. The dixie-bounce hits heavy as fuck with low bass as a twice-baked stop/start dynamic dominates, but a drunk's lack of attention to detail takes center stage here. The changing paces are slick, sure... but you're focused on finding your lighter and swearing at your neighbor about exactly where the property line sits. When are you gonna get your act together? Nanny stutters with slow-bled abrasions, slurring and swaying as you stare at the babysitter's tits. Don't worry, the smile is lost halfway through when you realize this creep ain't kiddin'. There's a Tool-ish Intermission before the return of bass bounce and low-drawn dirty blues.

Slugging away at ticking minutes, The Theft of Time is so thick with butcher-block chops (led by Brea's drums) that it'd be easy to miss the chorus, the buckets of drenched guitar, and the incredible vocals scratched with bruised hands. The buzzsaws manage to dam up a bit, but Jesus, this southern-sludge grind swings a sledge at jagged rocks and comes out ahead.

There's a lot o' music here. Gnaw more than sixty minutes with the first twelve tracks and you'll doubt you've got the steam for a nine-minute closer. Shit, the loose-doom fuzz of the disc's title track is a strong snag of sooty, soggy sludge decay. Plug toward revolutionary snares all you wants, but southern-rock emerges. Rhythms clip slow as dust and tar marry to jam your lower lip with a buzz you won't get from Beech-Nut. Progressing toward an exhausting melange of sticky rhythms and double-kicks is just where Lowbau promised to end their night. Blues return on the back of hovering atmospheres and boggy diamond-point acoustic plucks, but you've already made up your mind.

I love a beer or two with my Sunday Sludge, but this is too much. Lowbau flew under my radar for too long and decided 72-plus minutes of my life needed what they were offering. They were right, but I'm too muddled to fish at this point. Shredded sentiments, primitive/distant drums, and a fuckload o' groove should carry Lowbau beyond their thick-misted influences. This depth, these vocal walls, and the echoes of the southern timber are incredibly enticing. Don't worry about tomorrow.

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