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Not to be confused with with the US horror-loving death thrash metal band involving Vanessa Nocera and Elektrocutioner, Loathsome is a pitch-black depressive sludge/doom/drone band from USA, or else, according to the official definition, "One Man Misanthropy from Seattle, WA". The first utters from this project were painfully emitted during last autumn, mid-late October, and the end of January 2013 saw the release of a further massive dose of punishing tunes. Because Loathsome is not only the name of the band … The two long tracks of Loathsome’s debut SELF-TITLED TAPE, released on October 13th 2012, are enough for getting floored by the crushing intensity of Loathsome’s extremely raw sound. Extremely slow, ultra-heavy, totally bleak, drony sludge doom where sensations of darkness, madness and pain are further enhanced by substantial but not excessive doses of noise. The long tracks see sick dark ambient-drone soundscapes alternating with violent bursts of extremely heavy and molasse-thick, raw blackened funeral doom-sludge metal possessing the coarse abrasiveness of Reclusa, Moloch, Corrupted, Hell, Karcavul and the gruesome New Zealand acts Invertebrate and Baboon King, Meth Drinker. Vocals are either netherworld roars smeared by distortion and murky production in the crushing sludge-doom bursts or spoken samples. The depressive, suicidal charatcter of this ultra-dark music sounds is well suggested by the grim cover arts in Loathsome’s releases showing a scared child, a man blocked on a chair with something looking like a suspicious experiment tied to his arm and the desperate hands of a drowning man. However it is impossible to be insensitive when at the very end of the self-titled tape the dull blow of a gun puts an end to anything that was troubling the painfully restless mind before, the mess represented by the violent bursts of sounds or the numbing and suffocating dark ambient intervals. Scary indeed …
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Towards the end of October 2012 Loathsome released DEPRIVED EP, four tracks dragging you back to the nightmare for 30 minutes. As stated by the band, these tracks are actually like the precursor to Loathsome and some of them were composed two years before. The EP sees the alternance of shorter tracks, between 4 and +5 minutes long, and long suites. In the latter the band can better unfold the majestic power of their crushing sound via alienating soundcapes and the slow rolling of their glacier-heavy riffs over the suffocating, plodding rhythms of the cataclysmic percussions. The first short track, Maladaptation, is introductory to the majestic and obscure, almost ritual sludge-doom ballad in track Blistered. In the second “short track, Hindsight, is a mournful dark ambient experience where background noise creates the impression of relentless rain. As it was for the opener, also Hindsight seems to have the same role as preparatory track for the sick, grim to apocalyptic, noise-industrial madness dominating the final suite duly called Bleak. Sickening music is like dope, so for those who love suffering via devastating heaviness, Loathsome has more to offer with the new release, SCAPELUST, out on January 2013. This release includes seven tracks for almost 38 minutes, time-wise basically like a full-length. The final two tracks, actually the longest ones, are Black Flag covers. These tracks belong to the “manic depression-fueled recording sessions” from Fall 2012 and were originally meant for splits.
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Solitary notes and rants are populating the short, somber intro Lightless before the crushing track XII explodes. This cool crusty sludge-doom track is a bit different from what heard so far because of its dynamics deriving form extreme tempo changes. The sludge doom parts alternating with the dark ambient intervals are lead by faster tempos and have an even more crushing impact. Track Scapelust is mournful and martial at the same time with its layered sound lead by the dull sound of ultra-downtuned guitars.
Tracks Soiled and Humiliation Rite are two monster slabs of tortured, sinister sludge doom leaving scars on your skin with their extremely coarse, noisy texture and the terrifying screams in the background sounding as seeping through the soil over a tomb! The two Black Flag covers are Nothing Left Inside and Three Nights, both killer, nevrotic “Sabbathian” tracks from album My War (1984). Loathsome pours its boiling pitch and bleak noises over the almost laid-back doomy bluesy feeling in the sick Nothing Left Inside and turns the latter into a blackened sludge-doom nightmare. With Three Nights Loathsome retains some of the original groove but hyper distortion, scary chanting, the echoing percussions and the murky production make this suite as coming from a crypt.
Just awesome …
Can you imagine listening to Loathsome in a live show? How crushing …Loathsome is working on new stuff, splits and tapes, as announced on the band’s webpage, in collaboration with another one-man band project from Washington State, Violent Inhalant, devoted to harsh noise, and Norwegian drone act Töndra. Keep label Amputape checked, the same label that released Loathsome’s debut tape. While waiting for more new gut-tearing stuff, enjoy (so to say) the first monster servings that are available for FREE DOWNLOAD via Bandcamp.
You’ll be infected …
Words:
Marilena MoroniFacebookBandcampFor streaming:
Bandcamp | here
