Amongst doomers and headbangers in general, Birmingham, England is a town whose legacy need not be elucidated, and while stoner sludgers Sonic Lord probably aren’t about to inspire the same multi-generational appeal as Black Sabbath or Napalm Death, they do alright with the Goatsnake riffs and the C.O.C. vocals. The two songs on their Catacomb Records 7”, Trawling through Sludge each have a solid, if expected, presentation of stoner boogie and heavier aggression. It’s nothing what hasn’t been done before, but if we condemned every band who took Sabbath as an influence, there’d be no point to life.

I don’t find Trawling through Sludge to be wholly redundant, though no doubt some others will. Their blend of Sleep-style stoner metal riffing and shouted vocals makes for a decent listen at least across the 10-plus minutes of this 7”, with both “The Fallen” and “The Prophecy” delivering meat and potatoes sludge. They keep a groove locked in throughout and don’t seem to ask more of their audience than up and down nodding and vague appreciation, both of which are easily enough earned.

As it was released in 2008 and limited to 250 copies (the first 100 of which came with a Sonic Lord guitar pick), I’m not sure as to the availability of Trawling through Sludge at this point, but if nothing else, take this review as notice that Sonic Lord are out there, riffing into the ether. The four-piece aren’t changing the world, but they seem to do just fine as they are, and should they decide going forward to expand on the feedback-laden, grueling pace of “The Prophecy,” they’ll have no problems making friends in the heavy underground.

Sonic Lord on MySpace

Catacomb Records

Tags: Birmingham, Catacomb, Sonic Lord, UK

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 12th, 2010 at 1:37 pm and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.