There’s often something extra enticing about a posthumous release from a band you’ve never heard. Irish doom rockers Howlin’ Widow, who officially called it a day in 2011, have semi-returned to mark their final recordings being presented as the Exorcised Accidental/Son Shine 7”, a limited-to-250 red vinyl pressing on Freak Flag Recordings in a quality cardboard sleeve with separate lyric sheet. The artwork, striking blues and greens, is drawn by Elaine Ni Cuana, and included on the platter itself are the two titles, each of which clocks in at just over four minutes. The twin guitars of Gary Spence and Jason Hendry lead the way with riffs through both “Exorcised Accidental” and “Son Shine,” while bassist Dave Boyd and Tony Murray thicken and punctuate the upbeat but still classic-minded proceedings, marked by musical touches of British Isle burl à la mid-period Orange Goblin and the raspy vocals of Tom Clarke, also of the revived outfit Bad Boat, whose three-track Lonely Doom 12” finds simultaneous release on Freak Flag. Clarke contributes a memorable chorus to both of these songs, and though he’s largely unipolar in his approach and follows the riff, at a total eight minutes, there isn’t really enough time to either establish redundancy or offer much in the way of variety. Rather, Howlin’ Widow (who are neither to be confused with the harmony-drenched Howlin’ Rain nor the reverb-soaked True Widow) engage straightforward and efficient rocking, getting the listener from point a – no groove – to point b – groove – as quickly as possible, succeeding in making the most of their limited time. “Exorcised Accidental” boasts a bikerly sub-shuffle in the verse that nails home a familiar groove and then opens from its winding tension to a sufficient payoff in the chorus, while Clarke draws a line between early Alabama Thunderpussy and AC/DC with his vocals. There’s little left to the imagination, and Howlin’ Widow will be immediately familiar to seasoned sludge and stoner rockers, but the five-piece offer solid execution of structured songwriting, and “Exorcised Accidental” grooves front to back, the guitars staying forward in the bridge to shift smoothly back into the ending chorus and slowdown.

If “Son Shine” is rowdier and bluesier, it’s also essentially working from the same stylistic base. Clarke affects a more specifically Southern delivery, and the guitars once more blend effectively fuzzed tones with ‘70s swagger. Sign up for stoner rock and sooner or later this is what you’re going to get. I can’t help but be reminded a bit of Axl Rose in the bridge vocals, but the context is different enough and the league of Southern metal singers taking a similar approach wide enough that a direct comparison to Guns ‘n’ Roses wouldn’t really be appropriate. Howlin’ Widow’s lack of pretense prevails as “Son Shine” draws to an unceremonious close, the song wrapping as quickly as it came, cut cold at its very end. For what it’s worth, “Son Shine” would have worked just as easily as the A side of the release, but Clarke’s more unhinged take is well suited to the final thought, which it may very well have been for the band as well. If that’s the case – they’ve booked a gig to celebrate the physical release this January, but don’t seem to have any other plans while Clarke has revitalized Bad Boat – they left off with a professional outing. A recording from Mudd Wallace, captured partly live, and a mastering job by the ubiquitous James Plotkin  has ensured a crisp but natural finish, and if that sounds like I’m describing a beer, take that to heart in terms of the band’s aesthetic. I won’t say Exorcised Accidental/Son Shine is filled with potential because Howlin’ Widow aren’t a band anymore, but it does the job you’d ask of a debut single in making me wonder what they might have been able to accomplish on a full-length album, with a little more room to stretch out in terms of their songwriting and overall stylistic base. As it is, the two songs (a third track, “Narcotics and Gnostics” was also recorded and so far as I know has yet to see release) make a decent summation for a decent act who were probably cut short before they really took their approach as far as it could go.

Howlin’ Widow on Thee Facebooks

Freak Flag Recordings

More often than not, the rule with sludge is if it’s slow and screamy, you compare it to EyeHateGod. If the band is from the UK, as is the Northern Irish four-piece War Iron, you might throw Iron Monkey into the mix, largely for the same reasons. War Iron’s nautically-themed, self-released two-song full-length, The Faceless Sea, has more in common with The Slomatics and Conan (at least tonally), however, than the influential sludge of yore, tapping into ultra-low end heaviness with two basses in place of guitar and cutting through the rumbling morass with vicious, frothing screams. Throughout “Inch Cape” (12:09) and “Face the Sea” (20:50), images come to mind of a more metal-minded Weedeater or even Bongzilla, but War Iron’s perspective seems more hellish than weedian, and the atmosphere they create is murky enough to earn its sea-based thematic. They’re certainly not the first band to write heavy songs about the ocean or dying therein or sailing thereupon, but for nearly every second of The Faceless Sea, War Iron make it apparent that nothing else would work quite as well in solidifying the execution of the record. Even in the  breaks one might call respite if there was actually any letup in the density of the atmosphere – even their air is heavy – War Iron remain consistent in the dreary lumbering of these two songs.

About three and a half minutes into its 12, “Inch Cape” does ignite the pace somewhat, but even then, the thickness of Ross and Dave’s two basses and Baggy’s layered screams and death growls make it seem like there’s no escape. Drummer Marty has his work cut out for him in basically anchoring these songs on his own, since it’s not like one bass is part of the rhythm section and the other is filling the role of a lead guitar. As “Inch Cape” reemerges at its relative crawl, the basses are wide open, holding chords and leaving it solely to the drums to fulfill the life-raft role. Light rumbling under sampled speech takes the place of a verse, but even though at about eight minutes in, the song is effectively over, the perpetual amp noise/droning and sea noises that take hold prove oppressive as well as they lead into the all-at-once slam of “Face the Sea”’s opening. The second of the two cuts on The Faceless Sea is more diverse sonically – at more than eight minutes longer than its predecessor, it has room to be – though Baggy’s screaming offers no let up amid the mega-heavy bass, which, by the time the song is two minutes in, sounds like it’s just trying to blow whatever speakers it’s coming from. Some call and response shouts/screams ensue, and the basses and Marty’s drums line up for an overarching groove, but I’m not sure even that’s as striking as how heavy the whole affect is. That is to say, even when War Iron lays into a killer doom plod, it’s less the groove itself that hits you than the heaviness of it, the thickened tones from Ross and Dave. God damn it, that’s heavy.

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There’s something misleading about the title of the split release Conan vs. Slomatics. I don’t doubt that there could be some element of friendly competition between the Liverpool and Belfast outfits, as there often is for bands on splits, tours, etc., but it’s not so much that the two trios are doing battle with each other, as the name suggests, instead teaming up to rip a hole in the fabric of the universe starting with your eardrums. I guess that would have been too long to use as the title of the release, so Conan vs. Slomatics it is. The disc comes by way of Head of Crom records and boasts three cuts from each act, though Conan use one of theirs for an interlude/introduction, to clock in at just under 37 of the heaviest minutes you’re likely to encounter this year. I mean it. This shit is monstrous.

Conan’s Horseback Battle Hammer was without a doubt the hardest-hitting debut I heard in 2010, and they maintain that grueling, unrelenting tonality on their tracks here. “Retaliator” festers in low end and still manages to sound clear, fuzzed out and righteous. Guitarist/vocalist Jon Davis and bassist/vocalist/synth-ist David Perry pull massive, inhuman weight from their instruments, and the sound of the band hinges on it. As “Retaliator” transitions into the minute-long spoken word/ring-out piece “Obsidian Sword,” that atmosphere is maintained, but it’s really just a transitional piece to set the stage for “Older Than Earth,” where the Robert E. Howard-obsessed band really unleashes the plod. Perry and drummer Paul O’Neill start the song for about the first of its total 11 minutes, and Davis joins in soon with feedback and a devastating pace that’s topped with simultaneous growls/shouts and clean vocals. More so here than on Horseback Battle Hammer, Conan show there’s more to their attack than just that tone, though, and “Older Than Earth” plays off some higher-frequency parts that aren’t as likely to vibrate your skull. As with “Obsidian Sword,” there’s no sacrifice in atmospheric weight, and so they make it work, but it should be interesting to hear how they play the varying feels off each other on their next album. If their Conan vs. Slomatics tracks are a preview of what’s to come in that regard, here’s looking forward.

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