Written by: The Administrator
On one level, I feel like my work here is already done, simply by benefit of typing the band name in the header. It kinda sells itself, no? With a band name like that--so visceral! so evocative!--what use is my humble endorsement? On another level, however, I like this album, and when I like an album, I like to write about it. And so here I am, bloated wordcount in tow. We slumbering scribes are excited to premiere today, in its entirety, Blood & Oil. This is the sophomore LP from Simon Bryant's "filthy" and "punishing" sludge metal/noise rock/crust punk/etc. project, and serves as the follow-up to Blunt Knife Castration's 2025 debut Live Fast Die Slow. And yes, the mere phrase "blunt knife castration" is enough to describe exactly what Blunt Knife Castration is all about. Sonically, thematically, and perhaps spiritually, the band is as grim and bloody and dark as you are likely imagining. This is gnarly stuff; sludgy and bituminous, filthy and snarling. Less-than-surgical and surprisingly experimental. Noisy and chaotic. Dark and often deliberately uncomfortable. If music can be described as ugly, Blood & Oil may very well be the poster child. Complimentary, of course. As a body of work, it ups the ante on noisy weirdness, and ultimately paints a pretty dark picture. Before I get too far ahead of myself, I must encourage you to give Blood & Oil a listen below! As always, we'll meet you on the other side.
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Written by: The Administrator
Promo material for Someone in the House, the debut album from Denver's Old Deer, describes its genre affiliations thusly: "notes of sludge, doom, and post-metal, woven into foundations of blistering mathcore, noise rock, and post-hardcore." A wide array of descriptors are then employed, seemingly hitting all the bases when it comes to heavy music. Someone in the House is dizzying, harrowing, visceral, brutal, and spidery. It is ear-shredding, shape-shifting, and pit-inducing. Unpredictable and extreme. Needless to say, before hitting play, I was unsure what exactly to expect lurking within. I was also very excited, because all of the words above indicate that Old Deer have concocted an optimal recipe for cacophony. I mean this both in a predictive sense (I'm willing to bet this album is cacophonous!) and a descriptive one (I listened to this album and it is indeed cacophonous!) Truth be told, I love a well-executed cacophony, and I love what Old Deer have done with this album. But! Before I scare you away with ceaseless blathering: Someone in the House is available today, Nov. 7th. We're pleased and honored to offer a full album stream. Give it a listen below, and, as always, we'll meet you on the other side! 
Written by: Brooklyn Artemis
British summertime is the perfect time for sludge metal. The air is breezeless and humid, pressing downwards, cooking us in our homes and office cubicles. Flying ants mass at our windows, horde-like, a many-legged Great Heathen Army swarming over dying grass and melting bitumen. Government officials at every level are acting like proper bastards, though this is a less seasonal thing than one would hope for. It is in these oppressive climes that I revisited a growing back catalogue of modern UK sludge. The likes of Mastiff (a contributor to the Cyberpunk OST) and Swamp Coffin, both with excellent full length releases last year, have been fixtures of my listening recently. But another band I saw live a few years ago above a record shop in Sheffield also caught my attention during my heat-addled odyssey--Stockport’s Under. Appropriately for a band whose own Instagram describes them as a ‘tentacle K-hole nightmare’, there’s some interesting stuff going on in Under’s discography. The trio, formed in 2015, have released a series of EPs, splits, and full lengths that have honed a unique brand of progressive and at times psychedelic sludge. Musically, Under often swing between extremes, switching from slower and heavier riffs to quicker sections that display sludge’s hardcore influence, while incorporating a mix of almost soft cleans, high screams, and shouted vocals. Training Resource #5 (the band’s fifth release) was released in November 2020, just before the beginning of the second COVID lockdown in the UK, and I can remember that you could almost taste the resignation to what was to come on the air. The art of the EP, which is up there with the most unique metal album covers around, actually reminds me of that time, of that bizarre online academic and corporate culture that emerged during the pandemic, and never really went away. |
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