There’s not much known about Spanish sludge rockers Llord. The Barcelona-based trio recorded their debut demo last October and put it up for free download on Jan. 31, its three-tracks given a sense of extremity through guitarist David‘s vocals even as the band shows a commitment to a classic heavy approach, recording live and completely without the use of effects pedals. The former is nothing new — recording live is cheap and makes sense for a first demo by which to give listeners a general idea of what you’re going for sonically — but the lack of effects, Llord‘s attaining such tonality without a fuzz box or wah, that intrigues, whether it’s on the lead lines of “Iron Pescatore” or the larger stretch of riffing contained in 10-minute closer “Verro.”

Also noteworthy is the richness of the tones Llord are able to dial in. Bassist Aris complements David‘s guitar with clean, full-sounding runs, and even though the vocals have a more extreme metal bent — they remind especially on the slower Slayerisms of “Ordell” of Lair of the Minotaur — with drummer Mike serving as the anchor for their riffy wanderings, the material wouldn’t sound out of place with classic heavy rock wails put over them. This balance immediately gives Llord an individual sensibility in their take, and though I’m sure the demo’s primitive assault will be used as the first step in a progression that it is, it still provides a fascinating listen here and now.

Take a listen via the Llord Bandcamp stream below and see if you don’t agree. Glad to have these guys included in The Obelisk Radio:

Tags: Barcelona, Llord, Llord demo, Spain, The Obelisk Radio

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 6th, 2013 at 12:55 pm and is filed under Radio. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.