Sloth Herder - Abandon Pop Sensibility

Toss cult hardcore icons Rorschach in a blender with misanthropic sludgesters Dystopia and whirl in a dose of modern discontent and you've got Sloth Herder.

Abandon Pop Sensibility, the band's latest EP,  does just that. Sloth Herder rarely rely on a refrain or hook, and never anything to sing along to in order to get the listener involved. Instead, the band juggles speeds and mixes in a thick and harsh sound that is at its best in speedy transitions. Much like the bands mentioned before, Sloth Herder's got this kind of thudding, hard to pin-down type of momentum that pulls you in with repeated listens and yet is always a bit unpredictable.

Few if any moments really stick out on this short EP. I don't know if that's really a bad thing or not, but partly due to the production, as well as the band's style, changes and developments are subtle as everything's always pushed to the max. The bass is prominent in a Jo Bench kind of way and the drums are a bit buried beneath the mid-cutting guitar and throaty vocals. Gross, graveyard dirges are used with individually plucked guitar notes sans heavy distortion which overlap with the backing band to create these lurching and dread filled sections.

Should appeal to those who liked oppressive, gloomy, and rough metal that's not afraid to change paces.

 

Negative Standards - VI​-​XI

Harsh, impassioned, and overall gloomy is how I'd sum up Negative Standards in one sentence. As for their latest effort, VI-XI, it is a brutal slab of Dystopia like gloom with a hardcore approach and nods to black metal and sludge.

There isn't one particular aspect about VI-XI that strikes me as the cornerstone to their sound and success, but rather the delivery of the album as a whole. To point out a riff here, a line of lyrics there, doesn't really do a thing as it's the soul crushing atmosphere of VI-XI that makes me come back for more.

Album opener "VI" illustrates the band perfectly as bits of harsh noise and lost screams give way to a driving d-beat and charnel scraping guitars only to collapse in a titanic down-tempo section that has the meatiest bass drums I've heard in awhile. Where the band really gets things rolling it's with "VIII;" a great snippet and snaking black metal section that leads its way to sludgy outro all in under 2 minutes. The band accomplishes similar feats throughout the album, blending the soul crushing attributes of sludge (I'm talking Moloch sludge here, not Down), the energy and urgency of hardcore and the melodic tendencies of black metal none being a better example than the finale "XI" which is easily the best track on the album.

While I really do enjoy this release, the vocals aren't my cup of tea. That modulated electronic screen has never done it for me. That being said, I guess they do fit and do not subtract much from the band's sound all that much.

This album's a must for people like me who enjoy the harsher and more pessimistic things in life.



2012
Vendetta Records