Zespół: SEA BASTARD
Tytuł: Sea Bastard
Producent: Mosh Tuneage
Format: CD
Kraj: Anglia
Kategoria: Doom
Opis produktu:
Monolityczny doom metal z Anglii. Pięć ciężkich utworów, każdy trwający ponad 10 minut.
Dla fanów ST VITUS, ELECTRIC WIZARD, BLACK SABBATH.
Metal Archives [76%]:
Judge the book by it's cover here, for Sea Bastard's long form take on sludge/doom/stoner is a strange little release. Sonically, it's not all that different from a lot of what you've heard, but the structures are real strange maaaan. I'm not entirely sure what to think of the release as a whole, so get it up on youtube or what have you and join me as we unpack this curious little release.
Probably the main thing here is that the riffs are really, really long. By that I'm not making a call on tempo- this has some pretty slow moments, but it's no Sunn, or even a Sleep- but just that riffs are often 16+bar pieces, simply written but it's always a strangely long time before we're back at the start of the riff again. There's fills everywhere which makes it even more confusing; it gives the whole album a rather weird feel. Not super catchy, for one thing, as there aren't a huge amount of hooks. But also weirdly hypnotic and repetitive in a strange way that reminds me of Summoning, oddly enough, you're sure you've heard the main riff in "Psychic Funeral" a few hundred times before, but you've maybe only heard it the exact same way three or four times. Songs are already long enough and with the often lack of familiarity (I've listened to this album maybe 10 times at this point, over the course of a month or so) it feels like they stretch out for hundreds of years. This isn't really a bad thing; it is what it is. Long and hypnotic in a strange way- it'd be interesting to see what I think of this in a few years when I've maybe given it a bit more time to mature. I'm not that convinced anything will change, really.
Anyway, so there's long ass riffs and it fucks with your perception. Sea Bastard's general sonics are indeed much more sludgy than your usual stoner band- far less in the way of groovy pentatonics and a lot of chugging, a fair amount of somewhat dissonant leads that suggest darker ambitions than merely aping Sabbath or Wizard for the 50 millionth time; it's a good thing. I like the vocalist's way of throwing in the occasional death growl for emphasis- one definite general comment I'd give is that Sea Bastard do emphasis really well. There's a cool tendency throughout (see: the middle part of the title track, a truly fine moment) to use really crushing parts as the climaxes, the centerpieces etc. of the song. The whole thing vaguely reminds me of Iron Monkey in a few ways- perhaps it's best described as the fact that Sea Bastard are pretty keen on getting you going wild in a pit, as opposed to just nodding there with a bong or two. It's angry music, as opposed to stoned, despite it using a lot of somewhat similar tropes.
It's also fairly good music, although generally suffers from a lack of genuine memorability. The title track is a tremendous beast with a bunch of equally massive riffs one right after the other, eleven minutes of huge riffs that just get huger and nastier as the song goes on. Other tunes have fine moments- that huge surging riff halfway through Masters of Unreality, the stately tread of Psychic Funeral- but in between these times there's a bunch of fairly forgettable fluff- Ramesses' Revenge in particular being a really boring slog.
My advice to Sea Bastard would be to not change much, but forget the finesse, forget about leads and just make as much noise as possible. Because when they do it's a wonderful thing, a fantastic thing to behold. All up, a pretty decent album and one that I'd recommend to everything who likes stuff with big riffs in it.
Lista utworów:
1. SMASHED BY SUNLIGHT
2. RAMASSES REVENGE
3. PSYCHIC FUNERAL
4. SEA BASTARD
5. MASTERS OF UNREALITY
