There’s an old saying in the UK I learned on my recent visit that I’d like now to share with you, having since proved its validity. It goes like this:

“Dopefight will fuck you up.”

And it’s true. Dopefight, a trio based in Brighton, will indeed fuck you up. Their songs (as audible on MySpace as anything ever is), are short bursts of weedian anger, carrying stoner riffage into a darker, more aggressive place than it usually goes. Sometimes instrumental, sometimes not, the material is unpredictable and volatile in equal proportion. One imagines it’s a chemical concoction which, if not balanced just right, could blow up the whole damn neighborhood.

They’re a photo-not-available type band, so don’t expect much in the way of biography, but if Dopefight‘s music is left to do the talking, it does so with all the subtlety of scar tissue. I’ve been knee-deep in “Hound” and “Hijos de Fumar” for a couple days now and have no regrets whatsoever. “Saviour” and “Widows Smoke” should likewise serve anyone well who’s looking for a little boot in their ass.

Their four-track demo — featuring “Hijos de Fumar,” “The Thrall,” “Somnia” and “Widow’s Smoke” — is out on Corruption Recordings for anyone who wants to track it down, and Dopefight also has a split out with crusty London doomers Dead Existence that I haven’t heard yet but is bound to be worthy fodder for a scorching of the eardrums. For anyone too lazy to check out Dopefight‘s MySpace page or the aforementioned split, here’s a video of the band doing “Saviour” filmed at this year’s Loud Howls festival in London on April 11. Killer. Special thanks to Chris West for turning me on to these dudes.

Tags: Brighton, Corruption, DopeFight, UK

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 6th, 2010 at 12:20 pm and is filed under On the Radar. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.