Moorpark, California, four-piece Black Sheep Wall will issue their third album, I’m Going to Kill Myself, on Jan. 27 via Season of Mist (preorders available here). It is a full-length as distinguished by its brazen sonic assault as by its unfuckwithable cover art, comprised of just four tracks that total 64 minutes, more than half of which is dedicated to 34-minute closer “Metallica.” Billed as doom, Black Sheep Wall are probably even more in league with sludge, bringing a post-hardcore sensibility and irreverence to disaffected themes and massive dual-guitar chugging. Opener “The Wailing and the Gnashing and the Teeth” (the title of which I can’t help but hear in Professor Frink’s voice) begins with a single cymbal hit from drummer Jackson Thompson and proceeds to fade in guitars and bass around it, but ultimately cuts back when Brandon Gillichbauer‘s vocals enter to a steady march and ambient, subdued notes. Those vocals, by the way, are vicious. So what you have is Gillichbauer (also bass) screaming over a military snare and the sparse guitars of Scott Turner and Andrew Hulle. I’m pretty sure the line “Fuck this band” features in the first verse.

The tension is excruciating, and made more so by Trae Malone‘s guest vocals in the midsection, but they finally pay it off in the second half of the track, ending with feedback and piercing, abrasive noise that continues into the immediate start of “Tetsuo the Dead Man,” the chug of which soon takes full hold with consciousness-demolition in mind, a tonal largesse sliced through by the screams, Thompson‘s drum fills past the three-minute mark not so much trying to anchor the piece as push it off the pier. Already, I’m Going to Kill Myself has shown a tendency toward brutal weight and attack, and there’s very little letup as the album plays out. “Tetsuo the Dead Man” stomps past its midpoint with insert-your-favorite-CGI-monster-here abandon and seems to celebrate its destructive triumph with a riff change around six minutes in that will consume the next two minutes before Black Sheep Wall devolve the track into a savagery of noise and feedback, peppered by what my or may not be a wail of crowd noise. The change into “White Pig” comes from a stop, but is ultimately no less fluid than that which brought on “Tetsuo the Dead Man,” the third track’s tension coming from a series of stops and starts that would almost be breather moments if you weren’t just waiting the whole time for the next pounding to arrive.

It does, without fail. And even with a second, clean-vocal guest spot from Malone in the second half, “White Pig” retains its extremity, rounding out with more amp noise punishment that bleeds into the opening riff of “Metallica.” The song, at 34 minutes, is a beast unto itself, centered largely around one riff accompanied by vicious screams in what proves an absolutely unhinged execution. Quite simply, Black Sheep Wall lose their shit. 2012’s No Matter Where it Ends and their 2008 debut, I am God Songs, also had closers longer than what preceded them, but the scale of “Metallica” is something different entirely. What, if anything, it has to do with the band of the same name, I don’t know — somehow asking would feel like missing the point — but the song is an overwhelming album-unto-itself onslaught, breaking around 24 minutes in to vague conversation and sparse guitar only to resume its bludgeoning course and give I’m Going to Kill Myself the riotous ending it deserves, repeating the title line along the way as a kind of final argument over that last riff, by then molded and remade into something other than what it started as, an off-time sludgeshuggah chugging that cuts out as brashly as it arrived.

Today, I have the pleasure of hosting “Tetsuo the Dead Man” for streaming. These songs are not going to be for everyone, but the second track serves as more than solid summary of what I’m Going to Kill Myself has on offer. Black Sheep Wall‘s latest is out, once again, Jan. 27 on Season of Mist. Ready your ears and enjoy “Tetsuo the Dead Man” on the player below:

[mp3player width=480 height=250 config=fmp_jw_widget_config.xml playlist=black-sheep-wall-tetsuo-the-dead-man.xml]

SoCal doom-dirge purveyors BLACK SHEEP WALL deliver their most oppressive and challenging material to date with their newest album ‘I’m Going to Kill Myself’. ‘I’m Going to Kill Myself’ is a unique take on the modern doom/sludge paradigm. It’s at once stark, oppressive, unsettled, despondent, and unwavering: wholly unlike any of their big-volume/down-tempo contemporaries.

Tracklisting:
1. The Wailing and The Gnashing and the Teeth (9:58)
2. Tetsuo the Dead Man (10:03)
3. White Pig (10:12)
4. Metallica (34:24)

Lineup:
Brandon Gillichbauer – Vocals/Bass
Scott Turner – Guitar/Bass
Andrew Hulle – Guitar
Jackson Thompson – Drums

Additional vocals on “The Wailing and The Gnashing and the Teeth” and “White Pig” performed by Trae Malone.

Black Sheep Wall on Thee Facebooks

Black Sheep Wall on Twitter

Black Sheep Wall at Season of Mist

Black Sheep Wall’s BigCartel store

Tags: Black Sheep Wall, Black Sheep Wall I'm Going to Kill Myself, California, I'm Going to Kill Myself, Moorpark, Season of Mist

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 15th, 2015 at 1:09 pm and is filed under audiObelisk. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.