When a band’s logo comes complete with its own pronunciation guide, you know you’re in for a phonetic treat. Not to be confused with the happy-giqacea you might find elsewhere, Philly guitar/drum duo Sadgiqacea specialize in oppressively dark and bleak post-doomcore, all lumber and crash and heavy and pummel the way the kids like it these days. There are some vague touches of psychedelia in the far-off echoing clean vocals of “Nature’s Antidote” — the second of two crushing tracks Sadgiqacea donate to the cause of a split with Phanatic countrymen Ominous Black — but mostly they’re just mean and dark, and that works out just fine.

The two songs were recorded, mixed and mastered by Mick Mullin at Super 8, whose impressive discography includes Total Fucking Destruction, Fight Amp and Javelina, and in about 13 minutes, they effectively cloud the mind in a wash of malevolent sounds. Even the surf-esque opening guitar lines of “Thy Will be None” feel as though they’ve been run through a hellish alternate dimension, and as the vocals once again change from yells to echoing clean singing, there’s an underlying melodicism that I can’t imagine Sadgiqacea won’t continue to develop going forward.

In the meantime, there’s enough low end in their sound to likely please everyone but bassists, and enough of a genre mix happening in the material to hold even the most fickle of attentions. You can check out Sadgiqacea on Thee Facebooks here, or if you’d rather not travel, here are “Thy Will be None” and “Nature’s Antidote,” courtesy of a fancy-type Bandcamp player:

Tags: Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Sadgiqacea, Unsigned bands

This entry was posted on Friday, May 27th, 2011 at 1:27 pm and is filed under On the Radar. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.