Feather and Stone

So apparently this is what happens when you make a sludge album composed almost exclusively of the fast parts of the genre. You know those fast, crashing introductions to sludge songs before the tempo drops waaaay down and the 'real' song starts? Well those parts are all that 'Feather And Stone' is. That, along with the twenty five minute running time of the album, makes this a pretty strange listen at first.

While it's not an entirely original idea, the mere shift in tempo does a lot to change how this music feels. The strangely placid aesthetic meshes rather interestingly with the nature of the music: violent, thrashing, and rarely calming down into a 'traditional' sludge manner but a few times on the whole album. The rest is inundated with chaotic and flailing crash cymbals, fast, crunching riffs, and hoarsely screamed vocals. It's nothing if not an intense listening experience; the slightly noisy, traditionally sludge style production often reduces the music to nearly pure noise from all the cymbals and massively distorted riffs; it certainly gets your attention quickly.

Beyond the initial violence of the package, though, my feelings about this are substantially more mixed. The minimal track lengths, while not giving the music time to get boring, also prevents the violence and chaos from developing into anything really more than mere violence and chaos. While the idea of a primarily fast-paced sludge band is a relatively novel one, the band doesn't really do a lot with it apart from reiterate sludge conventions, albeit at a higher than normal tempo. The end result is an album that, while initially surprising, becomes extremely predictable two tracks in. Amusingly enough, the biggest curveball on this disc comes in the form of 'Ascension', the only track which really consistently operates at a sludge tempo throughout. It's a bit unfortunate that the best track ends up being the most conventional one; it doesn't give me a great deal of faith in Black Cobra's ability to make this particular style more than a mere gimmick.

That being said, this isn't bad music, and it's a rather pleasing change of pace upon first listen, but it ends up not having anything more to reveal upon subsequent listens and as such is kind of a disappointment. This could have been a lot more were the music not so inherently one-dimensional and fixated on its gimmick; hell, Black Cobra would probably be a good typical sludge band, but the naturally restrictive style they've chosen ends up kneecapping ones enjoyment of the music. It's a worthy effort but I can't entirely recommend it, because while I appreciate the attempt, this isn't something I ever really want to listen to.

There are a few two piece acts out there and while Om is arguably the most stunning of them all, Black Cobra is probably up there after this album-in-question into account. Debut album getting a fair bit of airplay and a cozy place somewhere in the top of the 2006 heap? Fuck yeah. Bestial was indeed the shit and is one of the newer albums I gladly burn for anyone willing to get into some of my kind of music.


Just released on At A Loss Recordings, Feather & Stone is the smashing new album by these Cali Sludgers. Jason Landrian effortlessly handles guitars and vocals with Rafael Martinez (who incidentally plays bass for Acid King) is your mandatory monster drummer.


Completely raging sludge-doom-stoner is on the cards here and is done with so much authority, I'm going to call this type of music Sludooner from now onwards. Fuzzy down-tuned doom tinged thrashy sludge riffs, wild drumming and tortured screams is generally how it all goes, with subtle and occasional clean guitar parts to decorate songs. The exception being the nicely placed Thanos, a beautiful clean instrumental track bang in the middle of the album reminding one of western-era Earth. Songs are to-the-point and short, unlike the elaborate jammy-bluesy-psychedelic-stoner shit that some of us here have often been listening to. That floats our boat damn well too really, but I dig the in-your-face hardcore attitude these guys possess. Riffs come right at you one after another and songs are done-with in a little over two minutes more often than not. Dragon & Phoenix, at 4:40 almost seems like an epic in this context and it just fades out with some clean guitars followed by Ascension which has some more intricate clean guitars both to begin and end the song. I really dig the writing here. In a nutshell, it takes off where Bestial left and the end product is a lot more satisfactory.


Did you like the new High on Fire? Did you enjoy the new Weedeater? And for that matter, how did you like that new Orange Goblin? If your answer is yes to more than one, Get this bitch. Get this, bitch. This slab has it all and is up there with the best of the whole Sludooner ballpark.

Originally written for http://www.kvltsite.com