After an unnecessary three minutes of near silent intro ambience, this Irish act finally gets things underway with some thick and nasty material based around ultra sludgy rhythms and sick vocals that are either cackled or yelled/growled, all with a very throaty and totally unique texture. Now, the biggest problem here is that the vocals are an acquired taste, and they're also mixed way too fucking prominently. The recording is really pretty damn good, but the instruments are so thick and based around low-end that the vocals rise above and stick out like a sore thumb, making for an incredibly distracting listen. A shame, as aside from their penchant for meandering along and repeating too many odd timed rhythms to drag the songs on endlessly this is quite a promising CD. I just can't get into it because of the vocal placement. The fact that the vocals are always panned with different styles in each speaker is also a huge distraction. If they could get that straight it would be cool, because the drums sound great, the distorted bass is great, and the guitars are so dense and full of dissonant distortion that I'm pretty into that. The only thing I dislike about the songwriting is the aforementioned issue of just cramming riffs together and going on and on. Aside from the instrumental segues every track runs around six to 14 minutes, which gets pretty fuckin' tiresome. They ought to toss some of the quirky shit and just stick to dirty odd-timed rhythms and those sick yelling vocals. The high cackles are irritating and clash with the music too much. The first several minutes of "Tap" are instrumental, and by far the most cohesive moments on the disc, unleashing a load of plodding, massive destructive that truly realizes the band's full potential. The 11+ minute "Spiracle" starts similarly and introduces some really subtle melodic tinges, which rule, but much like "Tap" it ends up transforming into an almost entirely different song that runs for nearly 12 minutes. The layout's 50/50. I really like the color scheme and the textures, and some of the concepts are alright, but the computer altered collages of man and machine parts aren't happening for me. It looks to blatantly digital and I'm not into that look at all. The jewel case has a great looking slip sleeve around it though, and that looks very nice. The content is a little abstract, and I can handle that. "Creativity struggles to seep out of inadequacy's self-loathing doors. Inspiration waits to be called, but I have no voice now. Apathy holds me in its quiet comfort, and urges me to be nothing." Fuck, I don't know... this could be so good, but it's just not there right now. The writing needs more focus, the vocals need work, and then they ought to be much closer. I could imagine these guys making a huge dent in the scene as far as a slow, pounding sludge style is concerned, they just need to push themselves to make it happen. I hope they succeed.
[self-released]
Running time - 60:30, Tracks: 9
[Notable tracks: Tap, Spiracle]
Scald - http://homepage.ntlworld.com/pmccarroll101/scaldweb/
