ninehertz

So here we are with Stomach once again, the vocalist from Weekend Nachos' outlet for slower, denser vibes (now with a partner making Stomach a two piece), and as across their demo and debut album before this, creating the bleakest and most honest interpretation of sludge and doom that you'll find anywhere. There are five tracks here, across nearly three quarters of an hour, and it has been created to make you suffer, an ordeal of such trudging darkness you'll get lost within.

Dredged opens, bone-rattling through a single note, doom at the bleakest outer edges - I'm a couple of minutes in, nothing has happened, and I'm overjoyed to be listening to new Stomach, it is minimal in its approach, existing on a slow and steady diet of atmospherics, black cloud covered visions of hell through single notes and occasional back of the throat release to the wild – it’s essentially a mood setting four and a half minute introduction, but it more than serves its purpose - you're locked in, caught in their claustrophobic, muggy mire of doom.

The dull thud of the guitar on Bastard Scum hammers into your chest, a confused mess of what sounds like newsreader samples overlying each other adds this frazzled edge to it, where everywhere else is frozen in place by the thuddingly slow pace, where each note hits home like mini-earthquakes, doom pulled down to its core nature, stripped of everything but its tone, weight and meanest face. It is, of course, glorious.

Then there’s the satisfyingly revolving riff from a standing position of Get Through Winter – which then blasts outwardly unexpectedly (if you forget they have form for these occasional faster splurges on previous records). It is a useful armoury to have up their sleeve so as to keep you on your toes without which you could be doped and duped into a comatose state of permanent oppressive restraint.

Other than the opener, Oscillate is the only other sub five minute track. It comes out fighting, one of the tracks that comes to meet you, rather than dragging you in like quicksand. It dies down pretty quickly, a brooding low lying atmospheric that makes five minutes feel like an hour.

And then there’s Shivers // Drafts and no matter how much you can wallow in the far-end of doom's depths, revel in its mire, the seventeen minutes and seventeen seconds of the closer brings an apprehension, perhaps for your mental health. It is of course encumbered, burdened by its mass so as not to move, pinned down in place. It is no wonder it needs so long to express itself, to rid itself of its demons, by its end there is a sense of catharsis even if just as a listener, the doom tipping into drone and washing over you (although the screaming end puts pay to a little of that).

This is on overly long review - I found myself getting carried away and totally invested in a narrative creepingly unfurling around me. Stomach’s releases to date have been favourites all, but they have somehow taken it to another level, a depth unimaginable. It is simply an incredible doom record.