(((O))) Review: Modder – The Great Liberation Through Hearing

Modder is a Belgian sludge and doom metal band from Ghent, Belgium. The band surprised us with their self-titled debut stashed with groovy riffs and intoxicating bass lines. We were looking forward and very curious how the successor of Modder would sound. The band members suffered some meaningful losses during the past two and a half years so The Bardo Thodol (The Tibetan Book of the Dead) became an important source of inspiration during the construction of The Great Liberation Through Hearing.

During the first listening session we already got lost in a complex maze of sludgy post-metal with neck breaking guitar work, heavy bass lines and pounding drum parts. This album is without no doubt an energy bomb seeking its way through metal subgenres like thrash metal, sludge and doom. Modder surprisingly adds electronic effects, strange rhythms and more melodical parts in their compositions which give the album a psychedelic and atmospheric touch.

The Great Liberation Through Hearing is an album with heavy grooves and repetitive riffing resulting in a fascinating trip of sonic diversity. Mathlovsky (guitars), Gregory Simons (drums), Maurice Van Der Es (bass), Simon Felix (synths) and Jamal Talibi (guitars) just have lifted themselves higher into the post-sludge doom metal genre with an awesome album influenced by bands like Celtic Frost, Year Of No Light and Russian Circles adding a stubborn Modder attitude to the music.