It’s always tough to do reviews this time of year, from the end of the year, to the beginning, releases slow down quite a bit. Not that there’s NOT relevant releases coming out, there are, just they are few and far between. So, anyway, Happy New Year! Here’s some stuff…
God… it’s too easy for me to hate on Napalm Records stuff these days, so I’ve been trying to avoid reviewing any, but the band Oomph! has just got this birdbrain in a tizzy… Ritual is, well, PERFECT for Napalm Records: goofy, not intense, kinda all over the place. From their Wikipedia, “incorporated many styles of music such as metal, industrial, alternative rock, electronica and gothic to create their sound.” What? No psych? No doom? Jeez, they’ve thrown EVERYTHING else in there. So, what positive can I say about this? It’s tight, and definitely sounds less scattered than the Wiki description. These guys have platinum records!?!? This is NOT for me at all. I can’t really hate on it, it’s just not my thing. Imagine a more “rock” Rammstein. Industrial metal passages give way into electronica breakdowns. There is of course an element of this that appeals to the Hot Topic crowd. One good thing I can say is, unlike a lot of industrial music, this is less repetitive than most. All in all, I guess this isn’t too bad, and probably one of the things I dislike less from Napalm, but it’s not my thing (and hence not good). For mall goths only.
2 Fucking Pecks.
I totally picked WOORMS just because of the name, and it seemed easy to make fun of. This is beaking KILLER though. Sheesh. Slake on Hospital/Sludgelord is a punk/sludge/noise/what-the-peck-ever exercise in sonic brutality. This is part Melvins, Harvey Milk, Karp, Jesus Lizard, with a dose of Neurosis thrown in. If this sounds derivative, it’s not. This is a shambolic, lumbering piece of nastiness that steam rolls the shit out of the listener. It goes without saying that there is feedback in this (I mean, it goes hand in hand with this genre). Something like this could only come from a backwoods-sorta place (they’re from Baton Rouge originally). I’d like to point out that they make a horrendous racket for a three piece and I’ll be they SLAY live. Well done.
8 Fucking Pecks.
Until next time… Waldo out.
