You ever listen to something so heavy and feel like you lost brain cells? I'm pretty sure if Sisyphus had to push a rock up a hill that was as heavy as this record, he'd be stationary blowing his damn back out for eternity.
Headcrawl is a new project hailing out of Toronto, Ontario and featuring A.C. of Holy Grinder on drums, two bass guitarists, and a vocalist. If you are aware of Holy Grinder as a project and its noisegrind antics, set those aside save for the heaviness factor. This is more like if Water Torture were a sludge/powerviolence band that wanted to cannon blast cinder blocks into people’s foreheads.
Headcrawl turn over eleven tracks on their debut Demo 2022, but it only takes one or two to understand what they are all about: insanely heavy, sometimes blasting, sometimes slow, but always crushing tracks. One after the other Headcrawl lays people out like a beatdown hardcore show. Opening with "Headcrawl" the band throw down with some sludgy slow riffs, then get to some skull-cracking as it exits a blast and immediately enters the next round with "Backbreaker," keeping it sludgy and filthy. Headcrawl tends to lean into the slower, more beatdown side of things. But tracks like "Disillusion" have some faster leanings, pushing a bit more of a poweviolence/hardcore feel.
As far as introductory material goes, Headcrawl is playing some of the heaviest sludge in the game. The knuckle-dragging sound is not limited to death metal riffs, and in case one needed a reminder, here it is. I don't know what is in store for Headcrawl's future, but I am going to guess it only gets heavier and filthier from here.
You can pick up a digital copy of Headcrawl's Demo 2022 here. The head abrasions are no extra charge.
