I don't know what it is about Liverpool at the moment, but between the bastard sludge of Iron Witch, Corrupt Moral Altar's strain of absolutely apoplectic grind, and the breakout success of caveman battle doomers Conan, there must be something foul polluting the Mersey. In addition to the aforementioned bands, Liverpool has recently spat forth two more of the nastiest groups currently going in UK Doom: Coltsblood and Crypt Lurker.
About to embark on a frostbitten trek around some of the UK's darkest recesses, these two heathen clans have convened to record a limited-edition split cassette which will be available at each soon-to-be-pillaged city.
Coltsblood open their side with 'Consumption', a continuation on the ideas heard on their Beyond The Lake Of Madness demo. While the tracks on the demo had a tendency to wander aimlessly, if still threateningly, the (relatively) concise 9 minute running time of this track flays away any excess down to the bare bones. Opening with the discordant clanging of strings, soon joined by the cacophonous clatter of drums, they ensnare the listener in the murkiest of aural mires before proceeding to drown them in guitarist Jemma's painfully overdriven tones. When vocalist/bassist John Paul McNulty's subhuman rumble of a voice joins the fray, the feeling of total, inescapable despair is complete.
The other track on their side is a cover of my favourite Celtic Frost track, 'Procreation (Of the Wicked)'. Thankfully they choose not to just record a note-for-note rendering, instead imbuing their take on the track with a bristling malevolence that Tom G Warrior himself might cower in fear of. The raw recording quality distorts everything to the point of being almost unlistenable; it's so loud that it's a wonder any of them were able to tell what the other was playing at all. Befitting a cover of the band who started this whole thing, it sounds appropriately primal, and more cavernous and terrifying than 99% of black metal bands.
Crypt Lurker's side also contains one original and one cover: their own 'Behold! A Black Pestilence Dwells Within This Cyclopean Tomb' and a cover of Beherit's 'The Gate Of Nanna'. Their own track follows on perfectly from their tourmates' side, another 10 minute solid slab of raw blackened doom that will drag you down further into the endless chasm that Coltsblood cracked open. Whichever of the Lurkers it is who abuses the microphone has the kind of feral roar that reverberates around your skull, an entirely unpleasant sound that nonetheless gets stuck in your head even more than the intracranial fragmentation of a hollowpoint bullet.
I'm not kvlt enough to have heard the original by Beherit, but Crypt Lurker deliver an absolutely scum-ridden recording of 'Gates Of Nanna', all ultra-distortion and clipped blastbeats. To those that know the track, it's probably marginally more recognisable than Coltsblood's Celtic Frost cover, but no less terrifying or crushing.
Whoever dares venture out to see these two bands of misery merchants play in the next week is in for a seriously horrible time. The lucky bastards.
UK tour dates:
Wednesday 20th November - Banshee's Labyrinth, Edinburgh
Thursday 21st November - The Bay Horse, Manchester
Friday 22nd November - Stuck On A Name, Nottingham
Saturday 23rd November - St. John the Baptist's Crypt, Bristol
Sunday 24th November - The Black Heart, London
