Whilst I’m sitting in seat 8F of British Airways flight BA0782 from London Heathrow to Stockholm Arlana, it only seems fitting to listen to the latest release on ConSouling Sounds named ‘Samsara’ by Swedish band Snailking. I have never heard of this band before and I am genuinely impressed as they create a heavy mix of slow sludge inspired doom metal.
At first glance ‘Samsara’ doesn’t seem to be a long listen as it only consists of 3 tracks, but don’t get fooled there as the album lasts nearly 40 minutes. With the amount of repeating heavy riffs by guitarist Pontus Ottosson, accompanied by the deep sounds by bass player Frans Levin and the slow pounding drums by drummer Karl Jonas Wijk, it is not difficult to imagine why Snailking named their debut release after the old Sanskrit word ‘Samsara’, meaning “the endless cycle of birth, death and rebirth”, which is basically a repetition in itself.
Snailking takes their name after the second Ufomammut album and besides this influence they are heavily inspired by doom/sludge champions YOB, Sleep and Electric Wizard. At times they also reminds me of the desert rock of very early Kuyss. They pull all the doom elements to the forefront while grinding it up with some very heavy sludge and a surprising amount of melody to create this eclectic mix which would please anybody with a passion for heaviness, sludge and slow repetitive songs.
The opening track ‘Shelter’ lasts just under 15 minutes and builds up slowly with some nice guitar effects which give it a hypnotic almost spacerock kind of intro. This continues to build up steadily for 4 minutes or so, before really kicking off. Not in tempo though, but in heaviness as the guitar leaves the spacy effects behind and fully sludges into the song. Roughly two-thirds into the song there is a slight tempo change, but overall this song is slow. Very very slow.
The second track ‘In The Wake’ follows the same principle, but keeps it slightly shorter as this track is just under 12 minutes long. Especially Pontos Ottosson’s deep grounding vocals come through really nicely in this track. The final track ‘Samsara’ builds up on slightly more speed than the first two tracks and the band demonstrates they can also produce some melody into their mix of sludge and doom, something I quite like. It works great as a final track of this album, but sadly it also makes you want to listen to more.
So, while I sit in this airplane staring out of the window with the clouds over the North Sea passing underneath me, Snailking’s heavy riffing repetitive doom metal makes my journey to Stockholm pass a lot quicker than I was hoping for.
Out on ConSouling Sounds on October 19th 2012.
Posted by Sander van den Driesche.
