another pretty nice cover, don't you think?
Sloath by Sloath
Riot Season records, 2010
Doom usually is a straining listen. The point is to go on and on, in a Terry Riley on downtuned fuzz sort of way. As many other genres with a philosophy, you see how many ways this could go wrong. To make someone actually listen to same riff, usually a thick groove-laden sludgy slab of fuzz guitar, played over and over again at often excessive volumes, the compositions need to be clever in their minimalism and smart in their choice of sparse ornamentations.
Earth did it by getting the meanest riffs out there, and assembling them in a way that made sense, that willfully made you want to listen to the same 3 (ok, maybe 5, tops) riffs for the 32 minutes that Extra-Capsular Extraction went. When that weird anvil-being-hit sound came, followed by the longest note in rock history, creepy vocals & weird noise, well that was just the black cherry on top of the dark chocolate cake of doom.
Today, Sloath does it by mixing early style Earth riffing (maybe a tad dirtier) with a gloomy version of Hendrix feedback and vocals reminiscent of the ones mentioned above (i.e. echoed yells from far away, think flute from Hawkwind's Space Ritual era). This record should satisfy your most primary needs for monolithic 4/4 riffs played at 40 bpms, and in style.
"Black Hole", "Cane", and "Please Maintain" are the names of the 3 divisions in this creamy guitar and cymbal crash 44 minutes epic. Divisions are superfluous though, as Sloath manages to make these 3 tracks feel like just one very well orchestrated song, with interludes of feedback and the physical necessity of flipping the record. After the first half, the opening of B-side behemoth "Please Maintain" sounds surprisingly mellow. Rest assured, it's not a reassuring or nice instrumental in an Explosions In The Sky sort of way. The occasionally discordant guitar work maintains the unsettling atmosphere, which (by lack of accurate verbal description) is perfectly encapsulated in the cover of Black Sabbath's first LP:
You're thinking: "what is this?.. What's going to happen?.. Why are all the colors weird?.. And who is that person?.. " after 7 minutes, it's obvious you won't escape the sludge, and by the 10 minutes mark, the only thing you want is the sludge. An apocalypse made of over-the-top guitars. Which they give you.
I'm not sure you can call what happens at this point a solo, but a guitar adds a high pitched echoed maelstrom of notes to the general chaos. Reminiscent once again of a Hendrix or a Manuel Gottsching, but on horse tranquilizers.
I'm also not going to write what happens in the last ten minutes, you should discover it yourself. Let me just tell you how you feel after it ends: incredibly calm. If you weren't lying down while listening, you will probably want to, just for a second, and listen to the surrounding noise. It should be at a much more common volume. Birds chirping away. People talking. Maybe take a deep breath...
So what's the fuss with new age records? If there's one way to do yoga with music, it's probably with a doom record. Until better comes along, it'll be Sloath's self-titled for me, please.
Angry Chairs post about Sloath by Tim
I thought I'd add a little disclaimer about how all the record reviews signed JNCT are written: late at night, with said record on repeat. If I feel like I don't know the record well enough, I review another one.
JNCT
...
and thanks to Sandra for the title inspiration
