Ezekiel's Hags by Seven Sisters of Sleep

Sludge metal has always been more of a style than a genre, with it's down-tuned, methodical, swampy guitar play featured prominently alongside booming drums and vocals that can range anywhere from wretched screams to warm and welcoming serenades. It's certain that you never know exactly what to expect going into an album with the label "sludge metal," aside from the fact that it will hit you hard and it won't quit until you're done listening.

Not only does the Californian based five-piece Seven Sisters of Sleep (SSOS) embrace the sludge metal mantra, but they also use it as a stepping stone, a method of inspiration only to explore even darker and heavier depths of the metal world. The music found on Ezekiel's Hags can't be lumped into any modern genre, and trying to define it simply isn't a possibility. The band isn't looking to show their musical influences, or give you an idea of what they're trying to make, instead they're looking to engage in a complete onslaught of gigantic proportions as they envelop the listener in a cloud of raw, dirty, unrelenting musical horror.

As soon as the lightning fast blast-beats and Converge-esque screeches of the opening track Jones explode onto the album, the pace of the record is set. At only two minutes in length, you'd believe SSOS would rely on short, frantic, organized chaos to carry the momentum on their first release in three years. Instead, however, we see the band tackle multiple cuts of over five minutes, even seeing the closing track Bastard Son come in at over ten minutes. Just as easily as the band can hit you over the head with a hammer and bring your misery to an end, they can also tie you up and drag you along, stretching the brutality to twice or even three times the expected lengths while still finding new ways to keep you invested.

Even deadlier than the group's incorporation of such a varied list of genres (death, doom, and black metal as well as hardcore and grindcore, to name a few) is their ability to do so at the drop of a dime. One minute you're getting lost in the chugging guitar riffs of Plateau or Third Season, and then next thing you know, the vigorous drumming on Brother's River or the ear-splitting vocals and grindcore outro of Sacred Prostitute shakes you from your core. The album is equally technical and beautifully composed as it is ruthless and sadistic, perhaps that's exactly what Seven Sister's are aiming to do.

Favorite Tracks: Jones, Denounce, Gutter, Sacred Prostitute, Ud-Nun, Bastard Son

Least Favorite Tracks: None

Rating: 3.5/5