BLACK TUSK – Tend no Wounds EP ...

If you are slowly cooking in the steaming hot air (like in these unbearably hot summer days here in Southern Europe) and have the fridge duly equipped with ice-cold beer and, at the same time, you happen to be listening to BLACK TUSK, well, you might realize that you’ll start growing a long and goat-like beard like Jonathan Athon’s, your arms will get dark with tattoes everywhere and you’ll look more and more scuzzy! And, yep, you’ll end up looking like any of those three junkies from Savannah, Georgia!!

Black Tusk are Andrew Fidler on guitar and vocals, Jonathan Athon on bass and vocals and James May on drums and vocals. The trio is back to action with a new release, the EP Tend No Wounds, out via Relapse a few days ago, on July 23rd 2013. The guys are also embarking into a tour starting in USA and that will also land to Europe during next September 2013.
The new EP arrives after almost two years from the last, explosive album Set The Dial (on Relapse), after the split with band Dead Yet? and the promotional Relapse showcase. I had particularly enjoyed a definition of Black Tusk’s style reported on a review time ago, "Motörsludge", which adds to the better known tag of “Swamp metal”: a very dynamic style built up by often frenzied and always thundering guitar charges, rotten sounds yet ripping southern groove by the barrel, hardcore-styled shouted vocals (single, double, triple), pulsating bass and always tight drumming.

The new EP is available via the Relapse webpage both as CD and classic black or red-splattered white vinyl. As basically all the previous releases by Black Tusk, the cover art is preciously decorated by John Baizley of Baroness fame. This might not even be so strange as the Black Tusk lads share not only a good part of their musical taste but also the neighbourhood in Savannah with Baroness as well as Kylesa. The difference between Black Tusk and the above mentioned well known bands is that Black Tusk never introduced elements for enriching their style (e.g., prog metal). Since their first rants and burps, and especially since their 2008 album Passage Through Purgatory, the Black Tusk trio have been keeping their style quite pristine: rotten, abrasive, fast, southern and absolutely contagious. "Motörsludge", indeed!  And in the new EP this conservative tendency is maybe even more developed as the trio is actually changing style compared to their previous releases,  but they do it only for celebrating the punk and rock’n’roll roots of their own way of playing sloudge metal.

In the about 23 minutes of the EP Black Tusk do a strange thing: they open the dances with an instrumental intro called A Cold Embrace. This is a sort of prelude which is far from being atmospheric (like many intros are) and “cold”, like suggested in the title. No, the intro has a super-tight rhythm like the charge of the cavalry and makes you ready for the next real attack, Enemy of Reason. There the punk and rock’n’roll soul of the band is fully unfolded via a relentless pace. But the band is never abandoning the sludge metal background while keeping their riffs always pretty viscous.  The wild party duly goes on with the longest track of the EP (5 minutes and a half), the surprising “ballad” The Weak and the Wise. I write “surprising” and “ballad” because this amazing track actually starts as a folk ballad, by means of the seducing melancholy of violin and cello just backed up by the bass. This scam will last almost one minute, but then your stereo device will turn into a steaming cauldron overflowing with the magmatic power of a spectacular infernal swing: bass, guitar, drumming and some great roaring vocals like in Hellhammer … The rhythm is fast while abrasive punk, super-groovy rock’n’roll and blazing hot southern metal are building up a nuclear reaction. One has just to listen to it … No wonder that the label’s promotional video about the EP employs that track in the background …


 The following track, Internal/External, is slowing down the pace a bit but doesn’t slacken off. Black Tusk keep on hammering us with a sinister, raw track made of punk and, well, black metal (at least in the structure) molded with viscous and boiling hot sludge metal. Again vocals are particularly harsh and roaring as in the track before. The last two tracks, Truth Untold and In Days of Woe, gradually  dilute the punk explosion in Black Tusk but they are pure enjoyment as well.  Truth Untold is fast and sharp, a concentrate of punk aggression and groove conveyed from both southern sludge and  stoner metal in the vein of Red Fang, even if vocals here are nasty. Indeed the track is perfect for an official Relapse video which is narrative like Red Fang’s and totally addictive!! The closing track, In Days of Woe, is more towards classic southern sludge metal, is slower and reminding of Down and Crowbar. It is a cool track but I got spoiled by the wild punk party above. I must say I loved Black Tusk’s drift towards punk!  So I don’t know about you, but as to me, while writing these lines I still have my impromptu goat-like beard, my arms are still heavily tattoed (or is it because of the mosquitoes?) and I look really filthy!

Therefore I hope I’ll find more of these loads of punk and high-energy rock’n’roll in the album that, I guess, Black Tusk will soon unleash, as the EP Tend No Wounds does look like a “transitional” release … While waiting for more, let’s go and see these three swamp metallers on tour! Because during their gigs they play even harder and  they look even nastier than in the promo photos!  You’ll love them …

Words: Marilena Moroni

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BLACK TUSK - "Truth Untold" (Official Music Video)