#10 ORYX Primordial Sky
Slow, low, and downtuned to a cavernous level! These are the words that come to my mind as I blast the new ORYX album Primordial Sky which is out via Translation Loss. I have always been a fan of this band, but this record has pushed my wig back! Unholy hell, the vocals on this album are unreal! I’m so impressed by how they have been able to balance Heavy and Beautiful with Empathy and Dread. I want ORYX to know that this record has uplifted my thoughts out of some dark places.
#9 GNASCH INFINIHATE
WTF WTF WTF GNASCH is all the way live but they just might suffocate you with their dismal riffs! If you have not heard of this band, just know that they are one of the sickest Sludge bands doing it right now. Over the course of 21 minutes, this band proves to the world that they have something to say and I’m here for it! Good job GNASCH, I fucking love INFINIHATE!
#8 BLIND MONARCH The Dead Replenish The Earth
Now this is a fact: BLIND MONARCH’s new album The Dead Replenish The Earth via Dry Cough Records, Heavenly Vault, and minoRobscuR, and it’s one of the sickest, heaviest Doom records of 2024. I loved their last record, and I love this record just the same or even more. This band creates the kind of wretched and mournful hymns of Death that get me hyped! Unholy hell yes, I can’t get enough of their vocalist because their delivery makes my skin crawl in a good and putrid sort of way. I notice that this time around the band has injected more sorrowful breakdowns into their songs which adds even more to the ghastly atmosphere that they manifest. The opening tune, “Other Faces,” sets the tone for the suffocating sonic storm you will experience while listening to this album.
#7 COUCH Spiritual Advisors
Stop what the fuck you are doing! If you are a Sludge fan, sit down and blast COUCH’s new record Spiritual Advisors out now on Rope or Guillotine. This album is total mind fuck and I love every minute of it! Every song is a mind-fuck of twisted cult speak set to painfully filthy, excruciating sludge sonics. In Couch’s words, “we’re getting sermoned by the delusional and scheming messengers of the Lord from some of the most convoluted pockets of Christianity.” So yeah, this record is a mind fuck.
#6 IRON MONKEY Spleen & Goad
Life is good, but the world is SHIT! Sludge is good, but IRON MONKEY is pure filth! I have been a fan of this band for years and with their album Spleen & Goad, I have become an even bigger fan. I love the way they can create these caustic D-tuned grooves that live in your head even after the song is over. Like I said earlier, the world is shit and IRON MONKEY’S album is the soundtrack to what is happening around the world. I need you to blast their tunes “C.S.P.” and “Off Switch” so you can hear for yourself what Uncut Sonic Torment sounds like. Their songs actually hit like a gory horror flick where the killer makes you stab your own eyes out with a rusty scalpel. What I’m trying to say is that this band’s riffs are full of unhinged paranoia and leave no room for the sun to ever shine again. The vocals on this are SICK AF and bring nothing but pain on every song! Don’t get it twisted, yes IRON MONKEY manifests tunes that are modern-day blues infected with the stench of death, but you can always feel that these humans grew up in the punk scene. On the song “Red Flag,” you can feel and hear the influence of Black Flag’s My War-era or even early Discharge. I got to give this band mad respect for always doing them and never changing their sound to fit into trends. Yo IRON MONKEY, I just want to say thank you for always keeping it real!
#5 DOPETHRONE BROKE SABBATH
Hell Fucking YEAH, the Sludge Warriors DOPETHRONE are back and I’m fucking loving IT! Their new album Broke Sabbath via Totem Cat Records is SICK AF! Unholy hell yes, Vincent’s vocals are on fire on every track on the record. Musically, DOPETHRONE can do no wrong with their filthy riffs birthed in the sewer!
#4 FÓRN Repercussions of the Self
FÓRN is another band that’s left us longing for a new release since their 2018 record Rites of Despair. But the ensuing years of conquest, war, pestilence, and death have only served to make this band’s sound more magical and brutal. Their record Repercussions of the Self shows a FÓRN honed by time, fear, rage, and more despair, and with the addition of Lane Shi Otayonii, they’re produced an opus that’s layered and impactful. It threatens to drag me into the nightmare procession that marches before my eyes every waking day, crying for my helpless attention and vying to provide the vapid, consumable solution. “Dreams of the Blood” pummels my chest with soundwaves, grasping my heart in its icy grip and squeezing all hope from it, and then it breaks into a heavenly interlude like I’ve passed through the tribulations of life and loss and made it through to the other side.
#3 CHAT PILE Cool World
It’s time to chat about CHAT PILE’s new Cool World album. Their music reminds me of stepping into an awesome art show at the Deitch Gallery around 2007, or if the band Gang Gang Dance became an Art Noise Rock project. I say all this to say that this band is a master of not giving a fuck and of creating music in their weirdo likeness. CHAT PILE looks in the mirror their confident tweaked version of themselves stares back at them. As I listen to their song “Funny Man,” I think about being 14 and watching Black Flag’s “Modern Man” live for the first time realizing that this band sounds like no other. CHAT PILE knows how to weave Noise Rock into a sonic tapestry where Post Punk, Hardcore, Grunge, and even Shoegaze have the right to exist! “Camcorder” is a tune that creeps up on your brainwaves only to kick out any of your thoughts that your mushroom usage has not influenced. Amerikkka was founded on genocide, but as I listen to Cool World, I know that I’m free to be me. CHAT PILE are free to be themselves and for that fact, I fucking love this album. Respect due to The Flenser for releasing this album and keeping the underground awesome!
#2 THOU Umbilical
THOU‘s LP Umbilical (out on Sacred Bones) is gnarly AF!!! I was hooked instantly once I heard “Narcissist’s Prayer,” this song kicks you in the chest and Brian’s vocal tone will make your eyes bleed. I have always said that rad Sludge is like modern day Blues, and this record only proves me right. THOU have mastered turning their unhinged sonic stench into morbid D-Tuned anthems that in a weird way are uplifting. They also know how to layer their audio hate with sounds that add more tension. Let’s unpack the tune “Emotional Terrorist” — imagine if Sun Ra, Eyehategod, and Killing Joke all decided to collabo together, the outcome might sound like this song. I can’t over how HUGE this band’s walls of DIRGE are — every fucking RIFF they lay down is fucking MAMMOTH. Umbilical hits like the state of our world, all fucked up with no hope, just total despair and filth. THOU as a unit are on some next level shit, and I’m hooked on them for sure. At certain points while blasting their song “Lonely Vigil” I began to feel like my reality was being altered and I would never be the same after experiencing this auditory journey into nothingness. If THOU reads this, I want them to know that they fucking KILLED IT and then some! It should be noted that underneath all of their D-TUNED motion exists an industrial current that holds this album together!
#1 TOADLIQUOR Back In The Hole
This TOADLIQUOR record Back In The Hole is so gnarly I can’t get enough. The wrenching and tormented riffs that this band spews out are highly addictive. From the very first moment that “First Crush” kicks in, you will realize that this band is not fucking around! This band does not create songs they manifest deep sonic pits of despair for all of us to drown our anguish in! As I listen to “Recained,” I begin to feel like I’m in the brain of a Cyborg who has smoked 10 pounds of D-Tuned goodness! On the vocal tip, the vocalist vomits blackened bile all over the tracks. You should be aware that drinking too much TOADLIQUOR can cause Sludge-induced hallucinations brought on by their high levels of realism. This band is modern-day violent Blues wizards that speak for those who don’t have a voice. I look forward to the day we have Back In The Hole in our vinyl collection. I already can see myself lifted to the clouds by shrooms with the sounds of “In Gold” taking me even HIGHER! I want to say thank to TOADLIQUOR for creating music that they love and to Southern Lord for releasing music that y’all LOVE! Sludge ain’t dead it’s just getting realer and heavier!
