Stephen Murray

This review first appeared on  The Sludgelord  on 26 April 2017. I missed the release of Without Condolence at the end of last year. Cowardice is not a name I have seen about too much, either, but it should be. Somewhere between the despairing chug of Arizona’s gone-but-not-forgotten Wellington and the searing angst of His Hero Is Gone , this debut is the collective effort of some New Jersey scene regulars. It was recorded last summer and it moves like a soot crusted diesel-electric freight train leaking oil and coughing a dark brown carcinogenic fume. The drumming is a thing of beauty. It slinks and slouches; explodes, shimmers and tinkles. The vocals have that clawing desperation that perfectly exploits the emotional weight of the music which sways between melancholic, gritty, picked melodies and fully blown out chords as evil as pitch-shifted black metal. The whole tone of the album is so well judged that the acoustic number sandwiched in the centre doesn’t feel ...

This review first appeared on  The Sludgelord  on 11 April 2017. There is a Riff . It’s of the swampy kind that jacks directly into what remains functional of your richly barbecued, southern fried central nervous system. It appears about three minutes into the record’s opening song, ‘Veiled Aggressor,’ but you’d be doing it a disservice to skip ahead. The angry hardcore hammering of the first minutes leads into it perfectly, and is more than a vehicle to get you there; it’s a foot stomper of its own. Little wonder that this was the track used to signal Witchapter ’s arrival. The band’s debut release is the latest thing on Black Bow Records menu. So fresh, in fact, their first official outing was only a couple of weeks ago when they opened for Italy’s blackened warlocks Hierophant in a rather badly attended basement beneath a bar on the Margate coast. Having played their three extant songs (choosing a set order that took ‘Veiled Aggressor’ from the top and dropped it ...

This review first appeared on The Sludgelord on 3 April 2017. This is not doom. Even less is it sludge. The influence of those genres can be felt, but to understand Ohhms under those terms is misleading. Three years on since Ohhms' first appearance outside the rehearsal room, it is still unclear who first applied these labels to the band, though there's no doubt that these are labels the group have done nothing to eschew. Speaking outside Camden's Black Heart in 2014 before their second ever gig, the deal with Holy Roar not yet in the bag, vocalist Paul had admitted as much. "To be quite honest I would be happy to be lumped in with the doom thing just because it's different and there [are] elements of doom in [our music]," he had said. And yet, out of the then 30 minute set they had, only eight minutes were described by Paul as doom. He'd timed it. So what are they? "Classic rock, if anything," he'd said then. 'The F...

This review first appeared on The Sludgelord on 23 March 2017 What is it with the sea and some of doom’s more sombre bands? The rich nautical repertoire of songs about the hauntings of dead sailors, ghost ships and ungainly, ill-omened seabirds notwithstanding, the Big Water has proved an irresistible draw for many bands. Indeed, there appears to be three themes prevalent in doom right now: the sea, the occult and H.P. Lovecraft, and the greatest of these is Lovecraft (go on, argue for the occult; I’m listening). Written over three months and recorded live in a few hours, albeit with two different vocal sessions, Greenhorn’s “The Narrator” evokes the sea through a petroleum-jelly-soft Lovecraftian lens. Not to say this track lacks throat, rather that it balances gnarled guitar tones that roil and gurgle with the allure and seduction of ethereal Siren calls rendered in beautiful-if-creepy sung harmonies. The rich vintage glow swathed about both guitar and bass in the solos sati...