Wednesday, March 4, 2015

Slomind - (2014) Solar Plexus

At a time where the music landscape gets back to it’s basics, and time-honored, mighty riffs à la Tony Iommi are not any longer notorious “stuck in the mud”, the four piece Slomind tears up the Stoner Rock/Metal Genre with a big dose of distortion, fuzzy guitars and heavy beats! Initially intended to be an instrumental band! But while recording the debut EP “Grown Against the Grain” singer Patrick Pagliaro entered the studio accidentally... Patrick says:”As I heard what Tott (Guitars) and Tobi (Bass) banned on tape I was super stoked and had to record some vocal takes for the track “Exhale The Vile” immediately! I was waiting for very long time for such an opportunity”! The decision to go on with a singer just took a few seconds and now all 5 tracks of the EP are refined with a nearly unconventional voice to this music! Slomind combine traditional with the vibe of the nineties/early 2000s! Pledges to acts like Down or even the Truckfighters are slightly there but besides heaviness all songs are united by memorable hook-lines and make the band still earthy but Catchy!!

Ok, so this band Slomind, from Dusseldorf, Germany has been around for a few years now, and their first LP "Solar Plexus" was released last year. Somehow, they managed to creep below the radar, up until a couple months ago when I saw them on Bandcamp. Right after hearing only seconds of the first track I knew it was something special. Then after hearing it completely, I knew it should be heard by as many people as possible. I ordered the CD... I was able to find it on Amazon a lot cheaper than the files on Bandcamp. No matter what people say, CD's are still better than files (unless they're 24bit files), but that's a discussion for another time. I did however buy the first EP "Grown Against the Grain" from their Bandcamp page.

After hearing that first EP a couple times, the new album arrived. "Solar Plexus" really shows that the band has progressed leaps and bounds in a short time since that first EP, but haven't strayed from who they are as a band. It's heavy, focused and bombastic. Mounds of Desert Rock fuzz riffs, mixed with the piss and vinegar of Metal and Grunge are apparent. The vocalist sounds to me like a cross between Phil Anselmo, and Keith Caputo from Life of Agony. Phil in the screamy parts, and Keith when he's being more melodic. Not exactly like those guys, but its a good frame of reference. Just a great heavy rock album that's bound to garner them some attention, or at least it should. It sure grabbed mine.  -AW

No comments:

Post a Comment

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...