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Review & Video Premiere: Druglord, New Day Dying

druglord new day dying

[Click play above to stream the premiere of Druglord’s video for ‘Blood and Body.’ Their third album, New Day Dying, is out Sept. 14 on Sludgelord Records.]

It’s gonna get ugly. Pretty much from the moment “Blood and Body” starts, actually. The leadoff cut on Druglord‘s third full-length and first for Sludgelord Records, New Day Dying, is indicative of the kind of harsh, shimmering dankness the band emits, though it doesn’t necessarily speak for the album as a whole, as the organ lines of “Walk with God” (I suppose that could be a guitar effect) and the faster push in the first half of nine-minute side A finale “Rot of This Earth” — I see what you did there — find guitarist/vocalist Tommy Hamilton, bassist Julian Cook and drummer Bobby “HufKnell” Hufnell offering some standout factor from the surrounding tracks such that the Richmond, Virginia-based trio’s six-song/40-minute march to a swampy death never seems to be any more redundant than it intends.

That is, to take on the cyclical, rolling riffs of “Blood and Body,” topped with Hamilton‘s vocals that howl like an Ozzy Osbourne driven by the gutturalism of Matt Pike and Mike Scheidt with more than a hint of Southern sludge, is to expect a certain amount of repetition, and that is gleefully delivered across the LP’s two sides, basically even split at three songs apiece and each finishing with a longer piece: “Rot of This Earth” at 9:04 and the capstone title-track at 8:20. Druglord have dwelt in a post-Electric Wizard sphere since the days of their 2010 self-titled demo (review here), but on New Day Dying, they push their particular hazy fuckall into a place all their own, finding a niche in extreme sludge and an atmosphere that moves deeper even than their two prior long-players, 2014’s Enter Venus (review here) and 2011’s debut, Motherfucker Rising (review here), conjuring a feeling of pressing on into opioid tragedy as “Buried Demons” and “The Flesh is Weak” lead inexorably to the dirt-caked march of the closer, the swirling, noisy payoff of which seems to emphasize the “final” in “finale.” It’s fucked up. It sounds fucked up. It’s supposed to; that’s the idea. But they got there for sure.

Aiding in that cause is the production of Windhand guitarist Garrett Morris at Phantom Sound Recording and ReproductionMorris and Druglord have worked together since Enter Venus — he also helmed 2015’s Deepest Regrets EP (review here) — and the ongoing collaboration pays dividends throughout New Day Dying in the spaciousness of the mix and the wretched heft that occupies that space. There is an underlying clarity to the songwriting of New Day Dying that Druglord have never had before to such a degree, and Morris plays a large role in bringing that to bear without losing focus on the filthy tonality from Hamilton and Cook that plays such a significant role in the band’s approach. It’s not about sounding huge — at least it’s not just about sounding huge; they get there anyway — so much as psychologically brutal, and where records of all sorts might evoke a sense of place or time, New Day Dying culls the hopelessness of depression, that it’s-always-been-like-this-and-there’s-no-point-at-which-it-won’t-be-like-this feeling that seems to accompany some of life’s darkest moments.

druglord (Photo by Scott Badger)

Aesthetically, it’s not trying to perform this — that is, I don’t think Druglord set out to write an album about coping with mental illness; if anything, anti-dogmatic themes seem to persist in cuts like “Blood and Body” and “Walk with God” and “Rot of This Earth,” etc. — but there is that overarching disillusionment all the same, and as the opener begins to unfurl its liquefied onslaught, that mood holds firm throughout all that follows. Yet there’s a structure to it as well. Sides A and B mirror each other somewhat in form with “Buried Demons” finding a grim dirge to answer back “Blood and Body” while retaining the central breadth of tone, and “Walk with God” and “The Flesh is Weak” both offer hints of melody, the former in layered-in keys and the latter in its second-half guitar solo, though admittedly, the chug that surrounds threatens to consume all, even that lead which seems to cut through. Likewise, “Rot of This Earth” and “New Day Dying” share not just a prospective outlook — things are grim, folks — but a summary of the proceedings and a culmination thereof. Druglord seem to save their most punishing moments for these longer songs.

And fair enough. “Rot of This Earth” and “New Day Dying” itself are fitting examples of how Druglord have grown in the four years since Enter Venus stunned with artwork and craft alike, and as the first outing with Cook in the lineup in place of Greta BrinkmanNew Day Dying epitomizes the creative nexus that has been at root in the band all along — the fact that Hamilton knows what he wants their style to be and knows more than ever how to bring that to life in the studio with Morris. These songs were recorded over a year ago, so one imagines Druglord either have more new material in the works or at very least have become even tighter as a unit since they were made, but either way, New Day Dying still hones resonant miseries across its span, and in the lumber of “The Flesh is Weak,” the impact of each of Hufnell‘s kicks in “Walk with God” and the rolling psych-osis in the noise wash of “Buried Demons,” the band finds a new apex of a style that wrangles chaos without losing itself completely in it and is all the more theirs than anything they’ve done before.

The title-track starts its ending at about minute six, and the remaining two-plus minutes are given to Sabbathian solo layering and a thrust of low end that begins gradually to deconstruct itself to feedback during a series of hits from the drums and a declining riff. It doesn’t quite pull itself apart willingly as much as it gives over to the destructive impulse that’s been lurking in the album all along. It’s hard to think of a more fitting end to New Day Dying than to have the song that shares its name actually die as it closes out, and that’s only further emblematic of the consciousness behind what Druglord do here. Their approach isn’t just happenstance and their manifestation of it is a revelry for the depraved.

Druglord, New Day Dying (2018)

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One Response to “Review & Video Premiere: Druglord, New Day Dying

  1. Greta B says:

    As the former bassist of this fine band of fine people can I just say how great this sounds and how much I love this review? Thanks for posting!

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