ninehertz

This is sludgeness, wrapped in doom, with some serious screeching catharsis.

Featuring Chris, ex-Agent of the Morai screaming sensation taking on some even more tortured throat gymnastics, it's as if the spirit of Johnny Morrow has entered his larynx. The music is a strong, lumbering giant which proves sludge is far from dead, the tone the guitars achieve is filtered through fetid pedals and amps turned up to a ridiculous volume.

Repetitive, but in that way that insistently urges you to nod your head, Wizard's Beard should remind you why you like this sort of music, gloriously filthy and savage to boot it's the kind of album you put on to clear a party of normals and revel in sitting in the corner, screaming into your now warm can of strongbow, dribbling sick from the corner of your mouth.

With just six tracks that stretch way off into some sort of blackened, smoking horizon, you should get plenty of mileage out of this, standing as they do at around an hour. There's no let-up, the distinctly metal-sounding sludge has no patience for the meek or mild, the endless riffing serving only to underpin Chris's vocals in the extreme, there's anguish, there's grief, all the staples you'd expect but it's a crushing performance that will no doubt have left him feeling sore.

The arrival of some bands recently has got me thinking, Sex and the City-like that people seem to be taking their influences and just enjoying themselves. This is to be commended, not writing what people think is hip right now, but taking their love for their chosen genre and then beating ten shades of the brown stuff out of it.

Wizard's Beard may be the best sounding band in sludge right now, they may be wearing their Iron Monkey and EHG style hearts on their sleeves, but at least they are having a good time. More of this please, and come and play in Sheffield, we'd lap you up.