Diaries of Doom

That title’s a bit of a mouthful, isn’t it? I can’t actually say it out loud without tripping over my tongue. Anyway. I want to say that I’m openly a big fan of progressive sludge metal. I like fat, meaty riffs and bands who are clever with their music, and I don’t care who knows it. Put those two together and you get progressive sludge. There should be more progressive sludge out there, I want to discover more progressive sludge bands, and everyone should listen to progressive sludge. What does progressive sludge sound like? Well, there’s not necessarily a straight answer. There’s songs on albums included in this list that sound nothing alike each other. All bands on here are devout followers of The Riff™, but do vastly different things with it. There’s elements of black metal on here, all the way to reggae. Alright, then, at what point does sludge metal become progressive sludge? I don’t know, to be honest. This is all down to my judgment. Feel free to vocally disagree with me i...

King Corpse have been making quite the name for themselves in the Midlands as purveyors of grim Sludge Metal of the most rancid quality. The grim pounding of thunderous bangers like ‘Swamp Thing’ take a deep dive into Stoner Rock’s darkest recesses and take a morbid fascination in seeing what monstrosities they can coax out of the shadows. Gearing up for the release of this hotly anticipated new EP, I was very excited for more of the same. Business as usual from the Sludge Factory (see what I did there?)… What I got, however, was not that. Well, not exactly that, but that and a whole lot more! After an ominous, swirling intro, opening track Exhumation lumbers into view with a familiarly gnarly riff, but this is juxtaposed wonderfully with a vocal line that’s dominated by a whistleable clean melody and mournful harmony. Vocalist/Bassist Jack Cradock’s enviable screams are not gone, but the track is dominated by this relatively clean (we’re still listening to a Sludge record, a...

In the absence of gigs due to the pandemic at the moment DoD is holding off from the usual weekly roundups for the time being. There's a lot less going on - especially for the small, live, underground bands we champion - and it feels a bit depressing doing them without. They'll be back among more normal times. Stay safe out there.

We're already at the end of March. Seems like we're in a very different world to the one where I last wrote one of these. I'm not going to bother doing a social commentary like I did for the last couple of months. What can I say that everyone else hasn't been saying? I hope everyone's staying safe and sane out there.  Still, even if every gig and festival going is hit with cancellations, there's still incredible music coming out. I've picked out a few of my favourites from the last four weeks. Graceless - Where Vultures Know Your Name (death/doom metal) - Raw Skull Recordz My mate told me about this album only a few days ago, but it's absolutely awesome. Graceless come from Leiden, the Netherlands, playing infectiously old-school death doom. I've noticed a bit of a resurgence in the genre lately, and it's really great to be able to hear everything we love about it with modern production. Graceless do the job extremely well, with all the ...