I have to admit that I took one look at the cover, band name and record label here and judged this before even giving it a listen. I was pretty much convinced that it was going to be pretty standard deathcore and on hearing first track ‘We Fell From The Bottom’ patted my self on the back for nailing it straight off. It was all there, angry boorish vocals, pummelling drums and a breakdown but then the song descends into a slow and impressively heavy sludge-laden crawl. Perhaps there is something a bit more to it then I thought and looking at the cast list discovered that members of the band include Cayle Hunter ex The Indomitable Iron Sloth and Will Haven on guitar.
In fact as we move into ‘The Demon Who Makes Trophies Of Men’ (great title) we get a much slower pace to things and it’s akin to wading through treacle with mighty roars from singer Kirk Williams relentlessly pursuing you all the way. This has a really impressive bass groove about it and the low end has me nodding head along in time; the slow pace does not matter it still makes my head virtually fall off my shoulders. Suddenly this ups the tempo and goes for that mad dash for the finish line in a breathless charge.
This lot are from Chico is California and they describe themselves as being in the middle of nowhere. Perhaps this comes across in their music as it suggests going crazy in isolation, in a small barren town with nothing to do apart from drink hard liquor and make anti-social noise. They have done it well here as they caught the attention of Metal Blade who released this in US territories and SOAR in Europe. As ‘Fists Of Gods’ batters away at me I am reminded as far as the guitar licks are concerned of some of the NOLA bands and this should go down nicely with a slug of sour mash for those of you liking bands such as Crowbar, Eyehategod and Down.
There is nothing really here that I can fault apart from perhaps being drawn into a false start. This does not outstay its welcome as it knocks out eight tracks in a totally accessible 37 minutes and it is impossible not to love songs with names like ‘You Are Alive When They Start To Eat You.’ There is little in the way of ‘Defeat’ on this disc so check em out y’all.
http://www.myspace.com/armedforapocalypsesludge
