Monday, April 13, 2009

SLOTH - VOICE OF GOD


SLOTH formed toward the end of the 90's and put out one full release and a demo. It's kind of sad to even think about that since this is such an exciting album in general. VOICE OF GOD is an hour long twisted journey of paranoid mixed vocals, guttural droning instruments that can just as easily creep as sprint. Flourishing and fluid drums parts that sound like they have hyper obesity. But everything in this album is down tuned in fathoms, they are that fucking low, but being able to change tempo just as easily as they can start wailing out sonic grooves of delicious metal is a delight.

The opening track WISHMAN is just a taste of things to come, trench digging riffs welcome you as you start to see why the band is named SLOTH. A sweetly played grooving solo pushes the song further, farther and faster as the band starts to unleash pounding drums that are so heavy you think a giant army of Elephants is about to stampede out of them.

LORD OF THE GALLOWS is next up on the chopping block as you get sucked into the fucking sick riffs these guys keep doling out, this song definitely has a spacey feel to you. Its at a nice cruising speed song with a very catchy chorus part both vocally and guitar work wise.

GEMINIAN launches you out into the stillness of black space, floating weightless and tumbling gently through its folds. This song builds out the space vibe thicker and blacker, as flangers and reverb are rolled gently over the band. The composition starts to builder further pressing you on your journey as you fly past gas giant, further out as you pass the level of galaxies, overseeing all of the universe.

The track beautifully rolls into nice down tempo piece of straining guitars with a bluesy vibe. INTO THE SUN brings you back to the neighborhood but just far enough to see the members of the galaxy. They keep showing off, I swear it. The chorus is just as infectious as in LORD OF THE GALLOWS.

GREEN MAGICK puts us past the halfway mark of this album as it starts out with some drone worship and building drums. The entire band erupts into almost a volcanic like explosion of riff and drum playing. Pounding off gigantic throbbing chords  as the drums start to move into the next section with surgical precision the band working right around. The piece starts to dwarf all the other tracks previous as it continue riding this clodding beast of spacey riffs further and further, vocals mixing and playing around perfectly.  This is a fucking neck breaker of a track.

Now we come to the title track VOICE OF GOD, meet VOICE OF GOD. Mammoth BLACK SABBATH-Esq riffs vaporize all inhabitants who would hear this blared out of a pillar of amps and speakers. The vocals are something I really enjoy out of this album, they are dirty and funky while sounding like they are being sung by a drunk madman. This song is just another example of why its really unfortunate this is all they put out album wise. The second to last album finishes off with droning as it pushes right into the next song, never skipping a beat.

CASTING THE CIRCLE is the last track, and has you about a million miles from where you started back down on a planet looking back up at longing to take flight again. The imagery that this song evokes goes from demonic and hellish, to ethereal and divine. The chorus hints at that spacey journey you took as the remainder of the song always keeps you firmly grounded. It starts to strip down as the vocals become spoken, the accent breaks out and fits in so easily with everything. Musically this is strolling, observing, just wandering and thinking until the drone worship begins. This really gives you a good idea of how incredibly tuned down everything is. Massive knifes of stone stab up around you transforming you from a simple man to a conqueror of heights. The guitar works along blazing a purple hue of space as all your fears drift away, the snare slicing through a web of steel work as the bass grinds away with a lumbering gate. The whole massive tightly tuned train of cosmic decent ceases slowly hissing and eroding.

So we reached the conclusion of this album. It's just a very impressive effort it sounds so well thought out and smooth. None of the tracks sound out of place, this could be one entire song its just that fluid. The band is well recorded and mixed, the drums are always something I naturally gravitate to and enjoy, but this album has more then that. This has talented guitar and bass work, they sound schizophrenic, like the guitars hidden bass personality sprung out. This band really knows how to move from one part to the next, they really put together an album that is never boring or a part never too long. I've listened to this album numerous times and it still continues to sound fresh despite it closing in on ten years old, I just wish they would have put out more.

Track Listing:

1.) Wishman
2.) Lord Of The Gallows
3.) Germinian
4.) Into The Sun
5.) Green Magick
6.) The Voice Of God
7.) Casting The Circle

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