ninehertz

Sludge in the UK has its roots in the midlands – Nottingham to be precise, originally through Iron Monkey, via Bumsnogger to Moloch in the modern day. But there seems to be an upsurge in the South/South East – from A Horse Called War to Believe in Nothing – and particular in locations that reside on the coast. Perhaps there’s something to be mused upon about these old seaside towns being petri dishes for such a misanthropic musical style, but that may be better left to someone not land-locked in Yorkshire like myself.

Enter Black Groove, from Eastbourne… or, more to the point, welcome back. This may be their break-out album, released on Human Worth, but it isn’t their debut and as one of the most hardworking bands in the scene, they’ve been ubiquitous at gigs and festivals for a few years now. They are visceral, explosive live performances too, bringing with it high expectations for Work Yourself to the Bone.

They exist on the scuzzy, ill-tempered fringe of sludge. The majority of the album is pained and trudging sludge with eviscerating vocals. It is no pretence either, you can feel that this is honest, every inch of this horrid output and tortured anger and apathy. There are moments, such as on the excoriating Fuck Nose, where it descends into bubbling pools of stench, of the Grief or Noothgrush school of the genre.

There is more than one angle or pace to them too, to the album’s endearing credit. On more than one occasion you feel a speedball rush of adrenaline as it hurries by in a mess of sludge-punk, a little like Dystopia but also often riding upon a fat stoner groove. But they return to their core by the album’s penultimate song Looking Thin, where a slow and repetitive rhythm dredges the very bottom of the gutter, honing in on an ugly, unchanging note. This is sludge perfection – keeping the line, not moving, not tempering its scarred features, simply wallowing in the filth they have built and letting it hold us in a vice like grip within.

Work Yourself to the Bone is a success in that it wholly captures what makes them such an unmissable, dangerous experience on stage – sludge that is raw, dense and pissed off. If they’ve somehow missed your radar thus far, or you wondered if they’d be able to bottle that blackened energy, then strap in and prepare to be miserable.