You know that Bon Jovi song ‘Living on a Prayer’? And how within that particular track Mr John Bongiovi details the woes of a blue collar man by the name of Tommy who “used to work on the docks, the union’s been on strike, he’s down on his luck….it’s tough”?
Well, upon listening to Sowberry Hagan by Belgian noise dealers Ultraphallus, I can’t, for some reason, help but imagine that the sounds which are barely contained within this album would be akin to what was really going through poor Tommy’s mind at the time. This is seriously dark stuff. Yet still relatively accessible. Call it ‘doom’, call it ‘metal’, I call it hard and dark. Or maybe sludge.
The dark atmospherics of opener ‘Pathological Freemind Verse’ preface the album’s real opener ‘Right Models’ which is as close as you’ll get to a straight up punk rock song on this particular offering. It cuts and slashes its way through a terrifying, feedback-filled two minutes like a maniac butcher, with blood all over its apron before ending quite abruptly to be replaced by the feedback driven howl of ‘River Jude’.
These gentlemen from Liege clearly know the power they are capable of and seem to pride themselves in choosing the precise moment to unleash it, and as if to illustrate that next comes ‘Indians Love Rain’, a 7 minute journey of bending basslines, discordant guitars and whispered growl which explodes somewhere around the 4 minute mark into a massive sludgy riff and hurricane-like howls. It’s pure terror this stuff.
‘Cinghiale’ soon follows, a 3 minute burst of static and saxophone murder before ‘The Crumbled’ a 12 second banjo solo, replete with forest ambience, akin to the soundtrack from a graveyard scene in Resident Evil. After this quick stop to draw breath, ‘Golden Fame’ then pounds and drones its way through a tense, fearful five minutes of barely restrained power.
‘The Loss of their Teeth’ consists of one minute of disturbing womb-like sounds setting up the evil ambience theme of the 8 minute ‘The Red Print’ featuring Eugene Robinson from San Francisco Avant Garde legends Oxbow. Robinson howls, cries and whispers his way over a droning Nine Inch Nails-esque soundtrack, pulling us further in with each breath before album closer ‘Torches of Freedom’ sends the listener on his or her way with more chemical, industrial ambience hidden behind distorted voice samples and backwards guitar chords.
Sowberry Hagan is terrifying, like an all-too-real nightmare, but it is excellent from start to finish. Just don’t listen to it in the dark…..
Top tracks: ‘The Red Print’, ‘Indians Love Rain’.
Released January 24 on Riot Season
