REVIEW: SEALCLUBBER - STOICAL

Starting with a song titled “Tales of a Romanian Horse Whisperer,” UK mood-ruiners Sealclubber immediately bludgeon the listener with noisy sludge. Based on the prevailing sense of dread and hostility in the scabrous songs on Stoical, I’m guessing this horse whisperer has more in common with the deranged theatrics and animal mutilation of Equus than that Robert Redford snooze-fest.

Speaking of animal mutilation, you might have frowned at that band name already. If it’s any solace, the violent intentions of these songs don’t stop at aquatic mammals, and humans are very much in danger once pressing play. With their barbed riffs and the pitch-black ugliness of Drunk Dad and Trap Them, Sealclubber feel like Deadguy if they lasted long enough to have an experimental sludge phase. Like the bands mentioned, Sealclubber’s songs aren’t just sutured opiate-abusing crusty gutterpunk riffs tuned to the brown note. Even in a furious barnburner like “Haima,” the song scavenges elements of hardcore and stoner metal to create a richly textured soundtrack for giving and receiving shit news.

Despite a three-plus minute atmospheric interlude frustratingly murdering momentum, the album quickly regains its footing with “Vows of Silence.” Between suckerpunches of distortion, the reverb of callused fingers scraping over guitar strings leads to a foreboding bass tone that floats above the song like a storm cloud ready to empty apocalyptic rainfall.

It’s a fitting prelude to the disarmingly pensive epic “I Only Desire the Things That Will Destroy Me in the End.” That title likely applies to most fans of heavy music, whether it be regarding their bad habits, currently undiscovered crimes, or the headbanging riffs that will eventually snap their necks. The song proceeds patiently, feeling its way along desolate corridors. Two-thirds of the way through its almost twelve-minute runtime, the song confronts the bloody aftermath it was seeimngly trying to avoid. While the climax isn’t as destructive as hinted by the album’s first half, it still feels like the inevitable victory of baser instincts, where volume rules and subtlety burns away like bong resin. It’s a nuanced track that lingers in the listener’s mind long after it gently fades out.

While their two-song EP Sticky River was impressive, this is a definite leap forward for Sealclubber. While retaining their nihilistic bite, they also build soundscapes that reflect a rotting metropolis in a puddle of mud, blood, and petrol. Looking out my window right now, the view sure as hell sounds familiar.

Follow Sealclubber over on Facebook and check for news on a Stoical pre-order, available from Medusa Crush Recordings on February 5th.

REVIEW: SEALCLUBBER - STICKY RIVER

I’m gonna go out on a flimsy limb and guess that the seal this band threatens to club (jokingly, they revealed in a recent interview), is the semi-aquatic marine mammal and not the singer of “Kiss from a Rose.” Both acts are illegal, but the imagery here is important. Sealclubber are from Black Country, UK, which to an ignorant American like me sounds exactly like what I picture Cormac McCarthy novel landscapes look like: Brutal deserts, harsh temperatures, and unforgiving rain droughts. After some investigation it’s totally the opposite of some barren cowboy wasteland and is one of the first heavily industrialized areas of Britain.

The idea of the ground covered in black soot and the air thick with gaseous pollution totally makes sense when you hear this band’s music, though. On their two-song debut EP, Sticky River, Sealclubber dips crust punk in hot tar and drags sludge through toxic, black water populated with fanged, mutated fish. There is nothing manufactured about this music and it doesn’t fit perfectly in any mold, but it’s deformed, disgruntled, and ready to throw you into the gears of whatever machine will pulverise your bones the quickest.

“Losing a Fighting Battle” opens the show with harmonized guitars before diving through a landfill wall of garbage and discarded rotting pets and blasting into a greasy crust punk riff. The guitar parts groove with inspired flourishes that invoke dusty rock’n’roll and swampy sludge that would fit in the Savannah, GA scene. The heaviest moments remind me of The Abominable Iron Sloth if they grew up listening to Cro-Mags, but with less predictable structure. Simon Blewitt’s vocals are husky, harsh, and could give a colony of seals cardiac arrest, making them easier to subsequently club.

“Pissing in an Open Wound,” besides being at least mildly uncomfortable for the recipient of the urine, is also a noisy little patchwork of twisting post-metal, nasty knuckle-bruising punk rock, and the same black-water sludge appearing in the first track. Blewitt’s vocals drop an octave as his growl guides the song into darker territory and the band’s second Simon (Ingram) provides stand-out drumming as the song writhes riff to riff. In the most discordant sections of the song it sounds like the guitars are being played like a cello with a bonesaw, and that someone could step into one of these songs and drown in the muck.

This is a great teaser from a new band that likely doesn’t hate seals with enough zeal to club them, but will settle for clubbing eardrums instead. If you follow this blog you’re familiar with my label-crush on Witch Hunter Records, and this is another example why. Each band on their roster flashes originality, ugliness, and intensity, and none of them feel like clones created to fill a need. Sealclubber don’t care if you’re offended, and luckily I’m only offended by uninspired music. This nasty slab of scuzzy sludge is so good even the most hardcore seals would wear their logo as a backpatch.

Sticky River releases on August 2nd, but go listen to it now over at Bandcamp: http://sealclubber.bandcamp.com/music

And follow them on Facebook for news on merch and gigs:  https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sealclubber/473306152706632