sludge metal

Video Premiere: Pale Mare – “Descolada”

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Pale Mare

Toronto’s Pale Mare is a band you may remember from their self titled EP that came out two years ago. Comprised of only three songs, the EP gave us just enough of an inside look to know the band’s roots come from the hard hitting but sludgy side of metal. Simply meaning, this thing ruled and is still something we’re spinning when in need of that extra adrenaline. The band recently signed with Black Bow Records and will be re-releasing the EP soon so be sure to grab a copy when it’s available. Ahead of this re-release, we are proud to feature a Video Premiere of the opening track “Descolada” and it’s about the best example of how heavy the band can be as they gallop through nearly six minutes of serpentine riffs and viscous rhythms.  Continue reading →

Profile: Mike White of Cranium Crushers Bather

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Bather

If you will, think of any moment in metal when every ounce of your being wants to explode and a devilish grin forms – you know what I’m talking about. Right there, at that moment, is where Bather exists and on their self-titled debut, released earlier this year, they plow through six tracks of death, sludge, and caustic grooves that because of their blunt force, some have sidled it with the -coreisms of metal. After experiencing this thing for hours on end, I can see where that correlation comes from, it’s like a wall of napalm that lays waste to everything in its path but just enough melody to keep that head moving. Good. Stuff. Period. Anyway, we recently posed our set of Profile questions to the band and drummer Mike White gave us the rundown. Head inside to check it out and hit those links to snag your own copy. Continue reading →

Album Review: Beastwars – “IV”

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Beastwars - IV

Sometimes life kicks you in the teeth. Sometimes it kicks you again when you are down. Sometimes it keeps kicking you and you have to fight. Sometimes that fight manifests in an album like Beastwars’ IV — raw, ragged, angry, revelatory, and uncompromising. Sometimes it results in needing an album like IV without knowing it.

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Profile: Joe Mills of Stoner Doom Metallers Dayglo Mourning

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Dayglo Mourning

This Friday will see the release of a split release, Rope Enough For Two, between two titans of doom / sludge / stoner metal from Atlanta, Georgia: Dayglo Mourning and Bludy Gyres and to put it lightly, these two go for broke in keeping it hazy and heavy. Dayglo’s side sounds like a graveyard jam night with the biggest amp stack available and Bludy’s side — one epic track — is a slog through a psychedelic swamp. Tasty! Anyway, just ahead of this massive split we offered up our set of Profile questions to Dayglo Mourning’s guitarist and vocalist Joe Mills so head below to see what he had to say and visit those links to snag your own copy. Continue reading →

Unholy Divers: Eyehategod

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UnholyDiver-EHG-f

It’s been over a year, but welcome to the second edition of Unholy Divers, a sort-of new series where we immerse ourselves in the discographies of bands we should be more familiar with, but for whatever reasons, just aren’t.

To quickly re-state the purpose here: there’s only a finite amount of time we have for our existence, but a quick glance at Metal Archives shows the number of bands to nigh infinite.   Hell, it seems the amount of genres they don’t cover is just as large (sorry, all things that end in –core).

We all have our blind spots, it’s just some are more glaring than others.

Unholy Divers is our attempt to close the gaps. Each column will take a deep dive (*rimshot*) into a different band’s catalogue with the aim of giving ourselves a better sense of what the cool kids have been talking about all this time.  

So without further ado, let’s go down South and wade into the sludge of… Continue reading →