By: Dan Salter
UpCDownC | website | facebook | bandcamp |
Released on September 11, 2015 via Skingasm Records
It often seems like UpCDownC have been around forever but it has never really felt like they’ve had the credit they deserve for the amazing music that they make. Over the course of the 10 years or so that I’ve been aware of them they have moved forwards and evolved with every record they release and there are very few bands you can say that about. They have morphed slowly from the early crescendo-core post rock of And The Battle Is Won to the instrumental progressive metal of 2013’s Black Sea, constantly exploring the boundaries of their medium and constantly pushing those boundaries outwards.
Now as we enter the tail end of 2015 they’ve dropped, virtually out of the blue, an eponymous EP containing three heavy as hell tracks that border on doom metal; post doom maybe? It kicks off with the aptly named ‘Sludge Hammer’ and it does EXACTLY what it says on the tin. As a opening statement of intent it really could not be clearer; “Hi, we’re UpCDownC and we’re here to blow the fucking doors off”. Clocking in at under 5 minutes it’s the shortest of the three tracks on the record but it is no less for that. It opens with a sinister bass throb is underpinned by some weird electronic scratchings for the first couple of minutes and then, just as you’re starting to relax, it is smashed to pieces by an absolutely filthy low end guitar riff. Magnificent.
A moment of respite comes in the form of the intro to ‘Black Dracula’, the nigh on quarter hour long centrepiece to the EP. For a minute we are almost tricked in to thinking they had returned to their post rock roots with some lovely guitar and synth interplay that builds and builds but then, just as most bands would break out the crescendo, the hammer comes down once more with a downtuned riff that Monolord would be proud of that pounds away at the soul until the keys return in the third ‘movement’ of this epic, joined this time by a creepy as fuck dialogue sample. I can not tell you how much I love this track, one of the best I’ve heard this year for sure.
The closer is the fantastically named ‘Slobberknocker’, which apparently is a colloquialism for a spectacular punch in boxing or wrestling but sounds like it should be a euphemism for something far more adult. Again here they marry perfectly the styles and sounds of their past with the monstrous doomish riffing that, on the basis of this record, I sincerely hope is their future. Once the tune gets going it is an absolute animal. Faster paced than either of it’s companions it is as great a closing track as ‘Sludge Hammer’ was an opener, bookending ‘Black Dracula’ perfectly.
And then it’s over. If there is a criticism of this record it is its brevity, three tracks down and I’m just getting warmed up, but hopefully it stands as a precursor as to where this band is heading next and if so I am very excited for what they might produce. As it is, it is easily one of the finest ‘post rock’ records that 2015 has offered up so far.
