Five Reviews/One Day Pt. 3: Gollum, The Core
Wilmington, North Carolina-based Gollum would be at home in the class of genre-fucking grinders coming out of Chicago if it weren’t for a distinctive Southern sludge bent to the music on their Rotten Records debut, The Core. With the record, the four-piece pay homage to fallen drummer Hunter Holland, who died late last year but appears on the album and has since been replaced in the band by Seth Long. The songs bounce ideas off Soilent Green and Melvins, but create an altogether darker, more purely metallic atmosphere that calls to mind a doom influence largely absent from the music.
The aforementioned sludge — EyeHateGod, Buzzov*en, etc. — manifests not only in the guitar tones or the screams of vocalist Shawn Corbett, but also the sporadic samples Corbett provides. The keyboard work he adds to opener “The Calm Before” or later cut “The Burden of Ubiquitous Scars” (held back from being an album highlight by some out of place female melodic vocals) adds a subtle and unique bent to the material without being overbearing. The keys are hardly ever the focus, even on the interlude “Amor Fati,” which appears in the middle of The Core. The closest they come is the horror movie intro of “Schadenfreude,” but that could just as easily be a sample.
“Darkhouse” brings out a Sepultura influence, as does “Diggin’,” which features guest appearances from Weedeater‘s “Dixie” Dave Collins and Lamb of God‘s Randy Blythe, who because of contractual reasons goes by the douchebagular pseudonym Silky Johnson. Nice reference, dick. What is this, 2004?
Lamb of God has always sucked. So much so that Blythe‘s one-dimensional inward goat singing taints the rest of The Core for me and I’m better off just skipping the track altogether. I wonder if they paid him for the appearance with At the Gates and Pantera riffs he could take back to his band so they could pretend they’re their own. Ugh.
I’ll grant that not everyone has the same biases I do and that for many a Blythe appearance is something not only noteworthy but commendable. To them I say check out Gollum‘s self-released 2004 effort, Lesser Traveled Waters, because he’s there too. I’d rather hear Collins any day. Scott Angelacos of underrated Super Nova Records band Hope and Suicide shows up on “Blacksmith (Summoning Wrath)” (that’s not a parenthetical title that needed to be there at all), and The Core was mastered by Super Nova head/Today is the Day frontman Steve Austin, at his Austin Enterprise studio in Nashville. So if nothing else, it’s readily apparent that Gollum are willing to shell out some decent money to attach bigger names to their project. Whether or not Blythe, Collins or Angelacos were paid, I don’t know, but last time I checked, Austin didn’t do pro bono work.
Ultimately, despite the personal importance to the band, the names on it and the keyboards, The Core proves itself to be a not insignificant listen, but not mandatory either. There are grind acts grinding harder and sludge acts sludging harder and a couple bands out there doing both better than Gollum. They don’t offend, but there isn’t really much spark here either to keep me coming back.
While I appreciate your opinions, I’d rather have heard more about the music rather than about who was on the album and the 5th grade mindset insults. All of these gentleman have worked very hard to get where they are, just like most other bands. They all work blue collar jobs 40+ hours a week and do not have money to just ‘shell out’ to have a ‘big name’ on their album. They aren’t that shallow, and personally, I agree with you that their music stands for itself… skip “Diggin'” if you want to. But I think it’s pretty awesome that they’re friends (known and unknown) were willing to help out – for free – with an effort that took 4 years of blood, sweat, tears, a lot of hard work, and even a death, to get through. I’ve done many album reviews in my day, but I’m not trying to tell you how to do your job… just that I think this was a very unprofessional and unhelpful review.
I think it’s pretty clear that you misunderstood the review in some way. Any 5th grade mindset insults weren’t directed at the band and if you’d like descriptions of their sound, I’d suggest you check out the first, second, third and sixth paragraphs. I also think it’s awesome that their friends helped out with the record, which is why I mentioned it so heavily in the review and since it was such a focus of their promotional material. You’ll also note that the fifth paragraph says I don’t know if anyone was paid or not, but that Steve Austin charges a good bit of cash to master an album. In any case, sorry if you didn’t appreciate the write up, thanks for reading and taking the time to respond either way.
I gotta say I agree with the first responder’s opinion. The write up didn’t make much sense to me. Most of the body of this article (3 paragraphs) is concerned with discussing the guest contributors, Randall Blythe in particular. I believe that the author is obviously preoccupied with the concept of “celebrity” and has focused too much on name dropping, while taking out their apparent “beef” with Lamb of God, on Gollum. Perhaps the reviewer should write a review on Wrath, if he or she is so concerned with the stylings of Lamb of God, because Mr. Blythe makes one minor (yet indeed, powerful and appreciated) appearance here. I challenge the reviewer to find a band that could hold its own against Gollum today. If he or she would actually have LISTENED to the MUSIC, and left the politics of the modern metal scene out of it, they would surely come to appreciate the skill, talent and pure genius displayed here, not to mention the years of dedication and hard work necessary to produce a record of this caliber. I think that the review would be improved and more valuable to the readers had the author paid attention to the technical and artistic content of “The Core” instead of making his or her first priority “showing off” his knowledge of big names in the music industry. Nothing whatsoever was mentioned about the lyrics of the album, which play a major role in the development of such a dark and profound aesthetic on this record. Perhaps the author was too busy reading “How to Sound Cool While Writing a Half-assed Metal Review” to pick up the lyric sheet inside the sleeve and find out what REAL writing looks and sounds like.
I also disagree with this crappy review! The writer is entitled to his opinion, however he does make himself seem very unpro using this review to take cheapshots at Randy Blythe b/c he doesn’t care for LOG? How lame. Ironically, who is the real dick? Whatever…
I must say I have seen Gollum up here in NY a few years back before they had a singer and have been blown away! I LOVE their music and couldn’t wait for this new album to finally come out! I have been listening to Mp3s off their site for months now but today I will go pick it up at the record store! They are a very different type of metal band that has a fresh DYNAMIC take on things. Hail Gollum! Don’t listen to this jerk! You Rule!
Thanks to all coming to our defense here. This is hilarious and I can’t help but to think of how woefully miserable of a person the writer must be. Give him a break. He probably hasn’t been laid in years. But despite his unfortunate dispositions, I respect his opinion on just the music alone. There are many more positive reviews contrary to this however.
Yes he is way off base venting displeasure about LOG and Randy in our review. WTF? If the writer doesn’t like his voice or style…fine. Personally speaking, Randy is one of the coolest most down to earth dudes I’ve ever met or been friends with but there is something more that needs to be addressed.
I have a problem with the false misleading assumptions presented. I just felt compelled to set the record straight about Gollum paying people to make an appearance on this record. Not to get into too much detail of how each individual friendship came to fruition (folks will soon find this info in recent various interviews) but we have been great friends with every notable guest for YEARS! Randy, Dixie & Scott were more than happy, honored and willing to be a part of this w/o any monetary compensation! Are you kidding me? Geez! Now that is funny! I own my own recording studio and engineered this album. Working closely with Randy, Dixie and Scott in the studio has been a joy and we can’t thank them enough for coming to us and donating their precious time to this project! They would not have done so if they were not also fans of our music. As far as mastering, Steve Austin is a big fan and we have a mutual respect…as a result he only asked for a very minimal amount, far less than normal rates…mere peanuts! I was compelled to give him more than he asked however for the good work! Since I own my studio and did all the work and the notable guests were honored to appear for FREE, that means technically speaking, we only spent a couple hundred dollars on this album to Steve Austin for mastering. It is hardly ‘readily apparent that Gollum are willing to shell out some decent money to attach bigger names to their project’ as the article falsely assumes.
Ha ha ha…
Laugh at the ignorance folks!
Thanks for your support!
Just got a copy of ‘The Core’!
Not sure what the reviewer is talking about but I love it!
Different strokes for different folks I guess…
Not a huge fan of LOG either but I think they are good…
Good luck to Gollum!
Gollum are neither a grind band or sludge band or even trying to be any of those, so that last paragraph is a moot point.
They do their own thing and it works! They rock!
I think Gollum is a Mythologic, Psyhcosentric, Prog Metal Band.
Their music will take your mind places.
Lord Bane