Grimpen Mire
Out now through At War With False Noise / June 25th through Witch Hunter Records (Tape)
Grimpen Mire...now there's a band name. Immediately summoning up visions of swamp infested bogs and fog ascending from nowhere it also has a certain Tolkienesque charm about it. In some ways this sort of sums up the bands, but only in parts, in others you are faced with a much more scarier mire, one that treads heavily in the doom genre and doesn't let up until you are totally under its command.
This re-issue of their debut album A Plague Upon Your Houses has its feet firmly set in a sludgy style and takes great delight in forcing out some super heavy riffs to really ground you down. There's also another side too which creeps towards a much more hardcore side and it is here where Grimpen Mire really exceed.
'Bloodcult Reborn' is a good start with its doom laden riffs leading us in to, well...its mire? Then performing the neat trick of keeping us stuck there as they pummel our senses with an unforgiving sound which, and this is the trick, also contains more hummable parts than your average ABBA song (now there's a first! A mention of the Swedish popsters in a doom metal review). It's hardly pop though, it just knows what it's doing.
Perhaps the best track on here is the 'Cross The Rubicon', which channels that 80's hardcore action into its Cathedral sound and dares to try something different. Its long minutes serve to cauterize your brain into submission as hook after hook take you down its long journey. It's a rather thrilling ride and one you keep wanting to return to.
More basic doom territory is explored on 'As Above So Below', which seeps into your mind and creates a miasmic swirling noise as your head nods in time to its incessant riff. It also gets heavier as it goes along which is no mean feat considering the low end on this band already shakes the foundations.
Taking the low end even further to extremes, 'Black Mass Hallucination' drives the occult side of the band to the fore although if this is something they are serious about then it sort of passes you by. Instead we get demonic riffs matched by growling vocals which form a tremendous end to a rather good album. It goes on for a while but then these things should never be rushed, after all this is doom.
Grimpen Mire are good, they deserve to be heard. A Plague Upon Your Houses has enough going for it to stand out from a crowded doom genre and they do things a little differently from your average doom band. Melodies are high but heaviness remains and the sum total is an impressive debut.
