It's odd that a band who haven't released a full length since 2002s ' Will To Mangle' can't be described as being inactive. Since that effort and the many lineup changes including the departure of Liz Buckingham for Electric Wizard and the temporary instillation of Dave Sherman to name but two they have released enough splits and EPs to keep a crust punk band ticking over. Also with mainman Troy Medlin still with his grizzled hand firmly on the wheel Sourvein have continued to plough their uncompromising brand of sludge drenched doom with glowering gaze undimmed. That, somehow, is kind of the epitome of heavy metal, for me.
Ok. Now: Sourvein, it has to be said, are a band with an almost perfect name; Black Fangs the album bulldozes in with 'Fangs' the song with a baleful taste bitter enough to poison a river by itself. Take Earthride and Eyehategod, throw in a bit of the much missed Warhorse and really piss them off and you’re close. There's something unhinged about the torn and raw vocals drowning in this deluge of fuzzed out doom riffage, bringing images of wild eyes beneath bushy brows and stale whiskey breath through a matted beard.
The only downside really is that those vocals sometimes conspire to hide the riffs from me. I'm not sure how the rasp buried so deep in the mix can do this but particularly on 'Society's Blood' it occasionally manages, which considering the rich meaty sound is a shame. But there's plenty of groove here too, Jeffrie Moen's pounding drums on the aforementioned 'Society's Blood' driving the low end riff with menace or the hypnotic chord and feedback on 'Night Eyes' sticking blunt meaty hooks into you. Listen to the malevolent bounce of Gasp, an ominous rumble that did suddenly launches itself at you all teeth and dirty fingernails pausing occasionally to gnaw the bones, and just you try to keep still.
Without lyric sheet it's hard to be sure but besides the cover there's a vampire vibe to the song titles here, a blood obsession that is every bit as unclean and uncliched as Boodlet's angel monomania was all those years ago. Literal or metaphoric I don't know but it circles vulture like as the guitars slowly grind the meat from the carcass and brings a sense of bad addiction not sad men in capes.
It is relentless but terrific stuff. If you're being picky I guess the drawn out 'Holy Transfusion' is a minor let down by the standards on show elsewhere, prowling rather aimlessly apart from nifty bass from Ahmasi O. Daniel but the excellent ' Flux' and the wonderful, wonderful pitch black boogie nightmare of 'Nomadic' more than make up for it.
In the end you feel as though you've been kidnapped, left in a deserted factory and slowly crushed by something in the shadows that you never quite see and perversely by the time that the epic Nocturnal/Negative P shoves you back into the alley from where you were abducted, you want to go straight back in.
So good to find Sourvein in this kind of form. Superb.
http://www.myspace.com/sourvein13
Gizmo
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