I write this as the terrorist attacks in Nice unravel, as a French national things have been bleak in the last year or so. It's things like Tides Of Sulfur that help me get through the day. Their latest offering Extinction Curse is seven tracks of monolithic sludge metal of the sort that their peers can only dream of making. It looks at all the suffering in the world, the suffering brought on by people who quite likely have never even heard of sludge metal and makes it into something triumphant. Tides Of Sulfur get to the heart of the genre here, with no bullshit, no pussyfooting, and no holds barred. This is brutal, triumphant and strangely groovy sludge at its finest. Infusing darker doom elements with tight songwriting in order to craft something that remains engaging for spin after spin. Extinction Curse punishes the ears, and the top notch execution hints at great things to come from these Welsh Black Bow Records signees.
What I like about Tides Of Sulfur is how they have been able to almost totally trim the fat that comes with your typical sludge metal record these days. Sure there are moments that I'm not 100% sold on, but the more I spin it the more I understand. Anyways this only their first full length, it's not like they've been together long enough that you can seriously judge them for having a few riffs that drag on too long, or that simply don't get the job done. Through it all Tides Of Sulfur manage to maintain a facade of burning evil, and within that evil lies a very real sense of beauty. Extinction Curse decimates the spirit because it is meant to be played at absolute maximum volume. The way that these riffs stomp forward, each somehow bigger than the last makes for an addictive listen and a testament to the band's songwriting prowess. I mean, yeah, they don't break any boundaries and there isn't quite enough to make this the sort of thing the casual fan would come back to again and again, but as is, it makes for a rewarding listen.
There is a lot of metal out there in the world right now. A lot. Most of it sucks. Most of it just plays off stuff we've all already hard a million times and most of it is never going to interest me. Tides Of Sulfur do interest me though. They interest me because they see all of the genre's traditional tropes and use them to their fullest advantage. They take a sound that is by definition very simple and refine it into something special. They look at the bitterness of the world they have been dropped into and show you a music meant to reject it. Sure not every idea they have is the best (the intro to "Year Of Pigs" is downright disappointing) but at least they are trying, and the vast majority of the time their gambles pay off: so much so that the future of this band could have a massive impact on the rest of the metal world.
Score: 7.5/10
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