#10 DEVOIDOV Exiled From The Grave
Hell fucking yes, today is an EPIC day because I get to turn y’all on to the new DEVOIDOV record Exiled From The Grave. This sonic offering is a blackened ocean of filth that I’m enjoying to no end. Every second of this record has me unholy fuck this band is so so fucking gnarly and needs to be heard by ALL! DEVOIDOV‘s songs are audio death maps that will guide the listener to places of agony and bliss at the same time. It’s hard to put into words but there is something cinematic about the way they write their songs. The luring riffs of “BONE LATHE” will drag you into a cave of waste that will infect your whole being and the vocals will scratch away at your deepest fear. What makes this band RAW AF is that they can amplify bleakness while still maintaining RAW AF grooves that leave the listener wanting to experience more! Their tune “OBSESSOR” is a perfect balance between the light and the dark. Exiled From The Grave is a record that all of y’all should check out because it is that SICK! Oh yeah, the way this offering was mixed is spot-on! Yo DEVOIDOV, if y’all are reading this JOB WELL FUCKING DOWN! Imagine if The Misfits (Walk Among Us) and DJ Screw decided to collabo with Black Flag (My War) the outcome just might sound like what’s streaming below!
#9 TORPOR Abscission
A shiver went down my spine as soon as the fuzzed-out cymbals on TORPOR’s new video for “Accidie” began crashing over my head! This band creates earth-shattering sludge with a layer of almost industrial heaviness that’s pinned my brain cells to the cold cement and steamrolled my synapses. The guttural depths this music reaches with the croaking vocals and abyssal basslines is difficult to describe, so you’re going to have to experience it for yourself below.
#8 STOMACH PARASITE
I feel No JOY! I see No LIGHT! I see No HOPE! I feel No HAPPINESS! All I can hear is the suffocating despair of the new STOMACH album Parasite. As I listen to this HEAVY AF band debut, I realize that they have created a soundtrack to the turmoil that this world is facing right now and beyond. Inside their slowing-moving Sludge Death Hymn “Tooth Decay,” I can hear the torment that my ancestors must have felt during the Transatlantic Slave Trade or while they were being held against their will at the Cape Coast Castle. The torment-laden song “OCULAR MIGRAINE” speaks to the pain that I’m feeling as I see so many human beings slaughtered just for existing. STOMACH has created a Sludge record full of fucked-in-the-head riffs that make this genre SICK AF! I’m beyond stoked to be sharing this grim record with y’all in full below! Hurt people hurt people, and bleak people manifest sludge albums that will stand the test of time!
#7 LEFT TO STARVE Vapaj za mogućim
When Sludge is done right it slaps HARD like modern-day BLUES! When Sludge is done right it takes me to a place where my DISMAL thoughts turn HAPPY! LEFT to STARVE is one of my favorite Sludge bands doing it RIGHT NOW! Unholy Hell Fucking YES, their new album Vapaj za mogućim is SICK AF!!! Every song on this record drags the listener to a never-ending portal of BLEAKNESS! Songs like “Samotan” are D-tuned anthems that will leave you feeling like there is no hope. While at the same time lifting your inner spirit up to higher heights. LEFT TO STARVE’s music almost has this meditative quality to it that I fucking love. I totally get lost in their wall of feedback and dirge. As I listen to “Nad sjećanjem desant se nadvio,” I find myself thinking this riff was created in the land of the GIANTS because everything about this song is HUGE! With each release, this band proves to the world that they have something to say and y’all better feel it! Yo LEFT TO STARVE, I want y’all to know that I love everything about Vapaj za mogućim.
#6 CAGED From Roving About the Earth
Hell, fucking yeah the new CAGED record From Roving About the Earth is straight freaking John Blaze. They have created a Sludge album in their likeness and I love it! As I blast this album I can’t but help think that this collection of songs was created by humans who are comfortable in their creative skin! Yo Caged y’all free to take Sludge to higher heights and I’m happy to ride with y’all!
#5 WALLOWING Earth Reaper
WTF Unholy Awesomeness! WALLOWING is creating some of the sickest Sludge in the world! Their new album Earth Reaper, out now on Church Road Records, is a piece of down-tuned filth that will leave you saying, damn, this band is amazing! Watch this epic video of them performing live that was filmed by the always-on-point Riff Underground. If there is one Sludge album that y’all should pick up this year it should be WALLOWING’s Earth Reaper.
#4 PEINE KAPITAL s/t
The soundtrack for the inner turmoil that I’m feeling is the self-titled filthy sludge album from Peine Kapital on Sludgelord Records! Unholy fucking hell yes — this band has manifested one of the gnarliest D-Tuned records of 2023! The slow-lurching riffs are full of morbid bile that leaves me saying fuck yes, this band is sick AF! This is the kind of music that I consider to be modern-day apocalyptic blues. I have no problem plugging my Sonic reality into hate-filled sludge like this because, in a twisted way, I find this kind of music to be healing! I dare you to blast their song “Cour Bestiale” and then tell me that this band is not the shit. I have no faith in the power structures that be, and bands like Peine Kapital paint the kind of world we are living in, riff by filthy riff! I lost all sense of fear in the feedback of D-Tuned anthems like “Uniformol.” I refuse to be silent, and bands like Peine Kapital have manifested an album that gives me a place to center my HATE!
#3 CESTODE Flesh
It’s time to salute CESTODE on an OUTSTANDING debut that will quake you to your core! These D-TUNED humans have manifested a record that is both suffocating and uplifting at the same time. I can’t help but get lost in their bleak storm of feedback. Their album Flesh is the soundtrack to the way that I have been feeling lately. I want CESTODE to know that we are HUGE fans over here at CVLT Nation. I want to say thank you to them for saying FTW!
#2 LIQUID SHIT Repulsive Bodies
It’s time to talk my positive shit about nasty, slow, fecal rifflords LIQUID SHIT! Unholy fuck yes, Dry Cough Records has released this band’s awesome tape untitled Repulsive Bodies, and I freaking love it! I really dig how they spew out their brain of demented, sludgy Death Metal that reeks of nothingness. Bands like this are the reason why I enjoy doing what I do. Cover your nose play their song “Foul Occurrence” loud and you will hear for yourself how unbelievably foul this band is. If rotting bodies had a sound, they would sound like LIQUID SHIT’s “Bound Forever To This Body.” Hot damn, this tape is so sick, I’m sure that this band will end up on our end-of-the-year list for sure. The next time you have explosive diarrhea, just know we just turn you on to the soundtrack of your fucked up bowels! I’m happy as a pig in shit turning y’all on to LIQUID SHIT’s Repulsive Bodies.
#1 BODY VOID Atrocity Machine
Unholy Fuck the new BODY VOID record Atrocity Machine is so freaking beyond SICK! It’s a total mind fuck in a good way and will leave saying damn this band is next level!!! I have been a BODY VOID fan from day one but I’m now a STAN. They are not writing songs anymore because they are creating the sound of everything decaying around us. I want the band to know that I’m beyond impressed with all of their sonic growth and look forward to seeing them live soon! Atrocity Machine deserves to be our 1# Sludge Record of 2023 because it’s a FUCKING HATE FILLED MACHINE!
