Sludge Metal Album Review Compilation Vol. 1

I wrote like 5 reviews for some sludge metal albums I've listened to but I realized that none of them were long enough to be their own blog entry so I decided to just make a series of blogs reviewing 5 different sludge albums each. This is the first of hopefully more to come, enjoy.

Our Problem - Iron Monkey 

A damn good sludge metal album I enjoyed, it's not exactly the most unique thing out there asides from the vocals but the riffs are good. Speaking of the vocals, it's an interesting take for the genre, I find that in a lot of the sludge that I listen to, people will try to emulate King Buzzo's or Mike IX's style and they just don't do it as well imo. Iron Monkey goes for a different approach with black metal vocals, which took me some time to get used to but I find that they surprisingly work really nicely with your standard sludgepunk stuff. The riffs are some nice bluesy sabbath inspired shit that I really fw but are a little basic for the genre. Does that change anything for me? Nah I still really like them regardless. 2 Joint Spiritual Whip isn't my favorite track in the whole album but it's easily the one that stands out the most, it's 20 minutes of sludge going through a ton of different riffs. If you have some time to spare and wanna know how their music sounds like, then I recommend listening to that song, the 8:30 mark is especially great. Only bad part is at 12:15 where they start doing some boring ass drone shit for the rest of the song but everything else is great. Overall, great album that I don't really see being mentioned a bunch that's worth checking out. 

Rating: 8.3/10

Blessed Black Wings - High On Fire 

Man it's wack to think that the vocalist behind Sleep made this when the band split up, I'm not going to compare the two projects but they're so different from each other it's insane. I like both anyways so who gives a fuck. Honestly the reason why I chose to review this to begin with is becuase the cover is badass, which honestly fits the tracklist cos the music itself is also really badass. I find it weird that people consider this to be sludge metal since it's so wildly different from the other stuff I've heard, and I mean that in a good way. Most of the time the songs are midtempo but the faster stuff like Devilution is definitely inspired by some thrash metal bands for sure, hell the start of the solo for Blessed Black Wings is straight from Megadeth. They don't whine about Metallica all the time though, so I'll let it slide when it comes to the guitar solos. The songs sound like some viking shit most of the time and lemme tell you it fucking rules, I don't know how to describe it all besides calling it FAT, it just sounds fat. Like yeah I won't lie at times the drums sound simple but they work so well the guitar riff and the THICK bass tone, and also like when the drummer decides to show off a little it's REALLY good. There's like some calmer parts too that are pretty decent but I don't like them as much as the Viking burning down a village sections but they're a nice break between everything, so I can appreciate them for what they are. Good album overall.

Rating: 8.1/10

At A Loss... - Buzzov*en

What a great fucking album man, really good shit overrall, I love it. The sound is very similar to EyeHateGod but it makes sense since Buzzoven is one of the founders for sludgepunk, even then they have a different kind of aggresion in their music that is pretty different from similar bands. This album leans more towards the hardcore side with some really fast stuff like Whiskey Fit and self titled, but there's still plenty of doom metal influence that I fucking adore. The vocals have some weird production on them that I really like where they sound sorta swampy, it oddly works really well with the music and some of the more nasally parts the singer does. The music is really aggresive and I dig that, it's the kind of shit I would love to see in person. From what I know the bassist here is in Bongripper too which is a band I gotta check out sometime cos they look really fucking cool and I'm curious to see what they sound like. Surprisingly not much else to say about this, it's just a really good album that I fucking love and is a fucking sludge metal classic. 

Rating: 8.7/10

Confederacy Of Ruined Lives - EYEHATEGOD

Honestly surprisingly better than I thought, from what I know EHG starts to fall off with this album but if you ask me it still gets really damn close to their first 3 albums. It's definitely not as good as any of them but I think if this was stronger in the middle then it'd be on par with In The Name Of Suffering. Mikes voice starts to get a little blown out here but he still gives a strong performance and it still works great with the music overall. Bowers riffs here are great as always, maybe not as good as some previous stuff but they're still really good and I'm not gonna hold it against him since Dopesick and Take As Needed For Pain are both masterpieces. Inferior And Full Of Anxiety took me a while to really enjoy but damn it fucking kicks ASS. It's really dissonant and aggresive even for sludge metal as a whole. It's a really unique song in general and Mike's blown out vocals fit perfectly with it. It genuinely surprises me that other bands don't try something similar since it's such a unique approach to sludge and sounds amazing once you get used to it. The other stuff is great too, I really liked it when Jackass In The Will Of God uses the riff from Southern Discomfort as a motif, idk why the did that but I first heard it a white tear was running down my leg the whole time. Really this review is just me geeking over Inferior And Full Of Anxiety cos I really like it and I want more songs like it. But yeah overall good album, just needs to improve the middle section more and then it'd be even better. 

Rating: 8.2/10

Guilty Of Sloth - Leechmilk, Sofa King Killer 

This is like the first time I've ever sat here and wrote down a review for a split lp, not cos I have anything against them, I actually think they're really cool, it's just because I don't run into them often to begin with. Leechmilk's side is pretty damn good, I don't like it as much as other people but I can definitely see why people hold them in high regard. It's a mix of metalcore and sludge which works really well and gives them a standout sound you won't really hear anything similar to, I honestly didn't expect it to work as well as it did but nah it's actually really good and I like it. Really consistent overall and definitely worth checking out if you're into sludge cos chances are you'll like it more than I do. As for Sofa King Killer's stuff, they start off really fucking strong with Take Me Up On That and So Was Red. Those are really good fucking songs ngl, their sound is way different from Leechmilk's since they mostly focus on doing some basic southern metal stuff instead of sludge. Their stuff is worse overall though, it's not bad, if anything it's alright but it's not close to the same level of quality from Leechmilk's side, they just go on and on and on and on and on. Honestly speaking they should've just stopped at Backdoor Thang and the pacing would actually be pretty good. The least they could do is shorten One More For The Road since the last riff is actually really good but it gets shit on by the fact that it goes on for like 3 fucking minutes with no variation or anything. Mind you Sofa King Killer isn't even doom metal so there's not really a reason to be doing allat. Hell same thing applies to Cajun Lady, it's the shortest song on the whole record but it's just the same riff for 2 minutes with no intro or ending or anything it's just inteusive as fuck, even if it's supposed to be an interlude it's a pretty lazy one to say the least. Again the songs themselves aren't bad but they're fucked over by their structure and the pacing of the entire 2nd half, it sucks cos they definitely showed a lot of potential and are able to make some really good stuff. Overall solid split but it's carried by Leechmilk. 

Rating: 7.8/10