Two tracks of sludgy metal (the B-side being “Wheel”), with the band growling and grinding along in decent form. The riffs have some fair hookiness, the drummer puts in some respectable work, and the low end is capably handled, but (especially for being a live recording), there’s just not much spark to it, and it comes off as something without much enthusiasm behind its creation or performance.
On their second EP (not counting the original demo), the Australian group of She Beast share four tracks of dirty doom sludge, gurgling growls and down-tuned guitars colliding with hard-pounded drums and a thick bass slather. Jumps to quick tempos are mostly kept to the shorter songs, and the EP follows an alternating pattern of a ~3-minute track followed by one about seven minutes long, making for a neat split of sides if this had ever received physical release. The longer songs maintain a heavy grinding pace, so the avoidance of getting stuck on one vibe for too long by switching back and forth helps quite a bit. Solid stuff in fast or slow mode, with a genuinely grimy feel to the sound and some surprisingly hooky riffs.
On what seems to be the band’s first release (since removed from their BandCamp), Worship of Keres turn out three tracks (”Book 1″, “Book 2″, and “Book 3″) of sludgy heavy metal, with the main distinguishing point being the lightly-fuzzed female vocals. Aside from that, the grumbling riffs and heavy beats, though competent, don’t do much to arouse excitement. The splitting of the songs also seems almost cosmetic, as the tunes are highly similar to each other, outside of a mid-way pick-up into soloing in “Book 2″, but it does help chunk them into more digestible sizes. Not that enticing, despite some fun ideas in the more psychedelic leanings, but as a first EP, not too bad.
On their second EP, the German group of Aleph Null assemble four tracks of sludgy metal, veering about on the edges of hard rock, heavy metal, psychedelic, and doom. While they hit some good groove stretches, it’s hard to shake the impression of the tracks being mostly experiments for the band to feel out their dynamics, without having much direction or focus in what they’re putting out. Their most effective song on the EP is also their shortest, with the ~3-minute “Gagarin” building on explorations of an acoustic riff while keeping its scope concise. For fans of the band looking for extra material, it’s a nice little set, but even at under half an hour in duration, it feels like the first half of the EP could have been cut without losing much value.
In Dvne’s last release as ‘Dune’ before officially making the ‘u’ a ‘v’, they offer up two tracks of fast-moving sludge metal. The first, “Into the Travellers’ Halls”, plays up the hard drum-work with growling yells and grimy guitar, building a big commotion that unfortunately doesn’t move too far from where it begins. “Of Blade and Carapace” kicks off with a clearer riff, and builds from a neat break into a multi-measure divergence that verges on prog. Not bad overall, but even with just two tracks, half of that is filler.
Scrambled Brains 