- Spaceslug
- Eye The Tide
- Stoner/Doom
- Poland
- 2018
- 8.5/10
Eye The Tide immediately gripped me with its slow rocking guitars and grunge vocals. It’s sludge and it’s done well. I’ll always love this sound. It’s like being tucked into bed by the Yeti. This artwork is by Maciej Kamuda and it’s a great marine piece, one of my favorite art themes in music.
The atmosphere is something you’d more likely hear in post-metal, it’s a bit brighter than stuff like Eyehategod and later Neurosis. It builds towards a flow gradually introducing more instruments and riff variants. Once it gets into a flow though it stays in a consistent rhythm very much like Alice In Chains’ album Dirt. But with a bass and gain increase as well as a longer song format.
Eternal Monuments is one of the best stoner tracks I’ve heard this year, it begins with such a chill but potent guitar over an ambiance mix going on in the background. Truly embracing the post-metal patience. After a few serene moments the meatiest sludge groove busts in like the fucking Kool-Aid man except he sounds like Eddie Vader. The groove eventually opens outward and starts adopting an Isis style of creating a fervor .
The clean guitars/bass combo is amazing when it happens. It’s such a chunky clean tone with so much expression. It’s musically beautiful and still appealing to those who enjoy the sludge aesthetic – played with the same groove as fuck techniques and notes. It’s damn near classical in its arrangement. No matter the weight of the sound, their delivery of it has a high amount of impact and at times profoundly emotional.
We hear a change in the vocals with Words Like Stones where it becomes darker – and the voice sounds almost agonized. The peaks in this track are amazing, there’s a straight up chorus part with chanted vocals that is insanely compelling. The tracks are damn long but they have the engagement level of Opeth’s work where it keeps dancing and evolving. Once you start listening you have to know how it ends.
At times it will collapse into a prog style and If they weren’t Polish I’d say there’s a southern aspect to it also. If you are a huge fan of Dirt, seriously check this out and I’m sure you’ll hear the comparison. “Rain When I Die”, Dirt and Rooster specifically, Spaceslug make it heavier with doom metal. The prog elements speak of the albums themes of outer space and the ocean. Ocean and infinite space consistently serves as powerful imagery to accompany the music compositions within doom metal.
Solid album that will stay in my album rotation for a long time.
Be the first to comment