These guys are local (South Jersey/Philly) but they’re starting to get big. Bigger than local. Big for sludge-doom metal. Big enough that a google search actually brings up the band instead of whatever they are named after. [Actually, the name is pronounced like some Native American word but it turns out to be completely made up.]

They’ve got a new one coming out on Candlelight Records, but I just got around to this one, which is their debut EP. I think it’s just a cleaned-up demo, in that it’s probably the first thing they recorded, done entirely on their own and then they got a label to put it out pretty much as is. But I’m just guessing. That makes the most sense, but it’s the music business. Maybe there are demos of this album, one dude on a beat-up acoustic, the other beating on a cardboard box, recorded onto micro-cassette in a basement bedroom. Epic 10-minute songs like that. Just the thing the people at HORROR PAIN GORE DEATH Records are looking for. (That is really the name of the label.) So maybe they do that and get an advance to buy real instruments? I really don’t know.

It was recorded at the Savage Rock School by Mike Britt. Savage Rock School is, or was, an actual place of musical instruction, not a clever name for a recording studio. Maybe a lot of bands record there. It is a mystery. South Jersey is sometimes a mysterious place. Mostly mind-numbingly boring, but sometimes mysterious. (The answer to the mysteries is usually also boring; in this case the answer is probably “sometimes”.) Mike Britt is the dude who records pretty much every band around here and even has a recording studio in a storage bin…somewhere. (Some mysteries are due to “lack of proper permits”.)

Anyway, those are the facts of the recording but it’s not like you can tell cause it sounds pretty good. I didn’t even get the record from the label, I just got it from Bandcamp. So I got the mp3s. It sounds about as good as any metal album like this. It was mastered by Chris Grigg of Woe at his studio BS1 in Philly, but just like mediocre mp3s of a good recording sound better than bad recordings in hi-fi, you can’t really fix a bad recording just by mastering. So I’m gonna say it’s a good recording. On earbuds it seems a little muddy, but this is not earbud music. I think of bands that write 3-5 minute songs, no matter how extreme, are making pop music. You can put a bunch of that of shuffle and just have fun (or, like, walk the dog or whatever.) This music is more like a soundtrack to an epic stoner brodown or solo space-faring sesh. I no longer do drugs or have a social life, but luckily I did put a new stereo in my car with an iPod jack, and this album is awesome for blasting down the turnpike. It really sounds huge; for two dudes in back room of a former dentists’ office or whatever that building is, just massive. (Britt sometimes gets into recording sessions, is there additional guitar on this? I thought it was only bass and drums, but it must be guitar through a bass amp. I think the dude is playing out of multiple amps. It’s pretty stupid I have not seen this band live at this point.)

I’m most impressed by getting the vocals sounding right in this style, the Melvins-esqe bellow. It’s overall that Melvins sound with more of a Neurosis feel in the format of the songs. There’s definitely room to develop in the area of composition when you go that route. Personally, I don’t know how much I can get into it, but it’s a band to watch. %