Garganjua | facebook | bandcamp |
Released on January 29, 2016 via Hibernacula Records (CD)/Black Bow Records (DD)
Maybe it is because of the state of the world. Perhaps it is a symptom of our alienation from human contact brought about by our ever-increasing reliance on cyberspace.
Maybe it is because thick riffs rule.
Whatever the reason, 2015 was a bumper year for doom.
Which means anyone releasing an album in 2016 has to do something special to be picked out from among the sludge, so to speak.
You wait: sooner or later, there will be nu:doom, with a hip-hop/tribal vibe. Or doomstep, featuring collaborations with Chase and Status. Or opera doom, folk doom… country doom. Or bands could just do what Garganjua have done and make massive mountains of sound, which draws from the deep, dark crypt of what has come before, but with their added touches. None of which are those mentioned above, thankfully.
What they have done for this album, the second from the Leicester quartet (they have grown from a trio, as well as progressed as musicians since their debut EP Trip Wizard), is bring a few chops to the table. We’re not talking virtuoso solos or 16/7 time signatures, but dynamics (both with contrasting vocal styles as well as quiet periods to offset the loud ones), the odd bit of syncopation and the realisation that a major chord progression is sometimes welcome in even the most dank songs.
Like in the opener, ‘Witch Hoarder’, which begins with a solo clean guitar before crushing the listener with near enough to a one-chord riff and roars from Gaz Owen, who also plays bass. It then quickens the tempo for soaring vocals from Scott Taylor (also of Beholder) and some excellent drum work from Ben Weston. (Just so he doesn’t feel left out, Gazz Chambers is good on guitar – him and Taylor both). On first listen, it sounds pretty familiar. But on repeated return, small subtleties appear among the head-nodding riffage.
It should be noted that the production is suitably fuzz-laden – and huge. Where Trip Wizard was tinder-dry, this is warm and satisfyingly thick, no doubt thanks in part to the masters at all things low-end at Skyhammer Studios, which is fast becoming the place to go if you are a UK band wanting to make large pallets of guitar-based heaviosity.
The second song, ‘Isolation’, is similarly weighty, but is clearly the unit-shifter of the album, given its ability to get in your head. The best song on the album, however, is the title track. The opening riff is monstrous; it sounds like Gojira tuned down lower than a snake’s belly. And even though great swathes of it are devoid of vocals, such is the number of changes in mood throughout its 10-minute duration, it holds you in its grip the whole way through.
‘Extinction’ rounds off the album and it begins like an epilogue, with a clean guitar plucking a simple riff. The fuzz returns, as do Owen’s roars, juxtaposed with Taylor’s epic singing. There is a part in the middle which embodies this band’s abilities, when the crushing noise pauses for Scott and one guitar to embark on a woozy tangent, taking us with it. Then the noise returns, smashing us out of our reverie.
So to answer the question about whether 2016 can live up to 2015’s year of doom: on this evidence, very probably.
