Pick your favorite sci-fi apocalypse and then close your eyes and watch it manifest as Slomatics make their way through the meager-seeming 35 Earth minutes of A Hocht. Favor fire? There’s plenty of that to go around, from the Anthony Roberts cover art on down. More of the ice, flood or plague type? Supernova? Perhaps just a big, giant, humongous thing smashing into the misbegotten crust of our home planet? Between “Inner Space” and “Outer Space,” the Belfast trio efficiently conjure a no doubt more glorious finish than we as a species deserve — and with riffs, to boot.

A Hocht — the title translating from Irish to “eight” to mark their eighth year as a group — arrived in 2012 at a pivotal moment for Slomatics. Issued through Head of Crom (LP) and Burning World Records (CD), the eight-song offering followed behind their 2011 split with English trio Conan (review here), whose popularity was surging at the time and who championed Slomatics‘ influence loudly and broadly; Conan guitarist/vocalist Jon Davis would go on to reissue the first two Slomatics records, 2005’s Flooding the Weir and 2007’s Kalceanna, on his Black Bow Records imprint.

In answering behind that and in seeing release through Burning World and Head of Crom, the Rocky O’Reilly-produced/mixed A Hocht was a shift in momentum for the band. It also marked the first appearance of Marty Harvey on drums/vocals alongside guitarists David Majury and Chris Couzens, which brought a significant impact to their sound and thematic in the years following as he would come to take on the Moog synth duties with which O’Reilly is credited here and which bring such a cinematic scope in accompanying the crush of “Tramontane” or “Theme From Remora.” The former tops seven minutes and is an automatic focal point as regards Slomatics‘ general methodology, but it’s by no means the only highlight of A Hocht when it comes to individual pieces.

To wit, “Return to Kraken.” Following the noisy and rumbling intro of “Inner Space” — which, yes, is echoed in “Outer Space” later — A Hocht makes its way through a succession of four relatively straightforward, structured songs. “Tramontane” is the fourth. “Return to Kraken” is the third, following behind “Flame On” and “Beyond Acid Canyon,” and after its roiling 28 seconds of an introduction, it sweeps and surges in with a riff and immediate verse that are superlative to the record’s destructive purpose. Even among the rest of Slomatics‘ pummel, it is singular in its largesse and though it’s shorter than “Black Acid Canyon” before it — mind you, neither that nor “Flame On” are lacking heft — it feels like a moment of impact-landing that’s intentionally delivered between the feedback at the end of the song before and its own intro. As a listener, you’re meant to be punched into nodding, and you do.

But of course, that wouldn’t happen with the lurch of “Flame On,” which establishes the spaciousness that accompanies so much of the plunder of A Hocht and comes to define the record no less than its riffiest moments, however memorable those might be. Slomatics aren’t exactly dropping subtle hints toward an atmospheric mindset with “Inner Space” at the beginning — it’s the first thing you hear when you hit play — but “Flame On” effectively brings that together with the tonal weight in Couzens and Majury‘s guitars, and as “Beyond Acid Canyon” plays out with a slower tempo, the idea of being dragged along by the three-piece through whichever endtime you’ve chosen is palpable, and by the time those synth horns seem to sound in the second half of “Return to Kraken” — that could just as well be guitar, to be honest; I’m not won’t pretend to know what’s going on there as it spans channels — the shift into “Tramontane” secures the hold the band have already well established to that point.

There is nuance there, though. In the effects on Harvey‘s vocals, or in the rhythmic turns from one progression to the next, the layering of guitar and synth, or even just the depth of the mix. I don’t want to give the impression that Slomatics are purely bludgeoning, because they’re not, and “Blackwood,” with just the non-lyric vocalizations from guest performer Arlene, or the instrumental “Theme From Remora” and the instrumental-save-for-vague-echoing-shouts “Outer Space” bring that notion to the fore. The vinyl release of A Hocht splits the tracks four to a side, such that “Tramontane” leads directly into “Blackwood” and “Theme From Remora” before “Outer Space” closes, and the procession of one to the next, the flow there, is every bit as thoughtful as the manner in which “Return to Kraken” delivers its bulldozer of a groove.

And just as their heaviest moments aren’t without atmosphere, so too is Slomatics‘ ambience heavy. “Blackwood” is drumless and dedicated to pure spaciousness and drone, and “Theme From Remora” chugs through a riff set to a deceptively upbeat drum march before building into its ultimate wash, the residual noise of which carries into the sparse initial combination of high and low tones that mark the beginning of “Outer Space,” which ends on a fading static noise like a transmission lost to cosmic background radiation. Whatever the message is there — maybe it was a way to save something — it’s gone.

A Hocht was the beginning of a purported trilogy of LPs based around a similar narrative, followed by 2014’s Estron (review here) and 2016’s Future Echo Returns (review here), and in addition to their 2019 long-player, Canyons (review here), the band has continued the streak of splits of which the release alongside Conan was a part. 2021 alone has brought work alongside Yanomamo and Ungraven (review here), and as I understand it, there’s more to come in that regard for 2022 too. Earlier this year, they also released the digital-only 2017 recording Live at Start Together Studio — on which “Tramontane” features, as it does alongside “Return to Kraken” on 2017’s Futurians: Live at Roadburn (review here) — because, well, it was February and who the hell knew at that point if there would ever be live shows again?

I’ll spare you tying that thought back into the various apocalypses noted above, but as much as the word “dystopian” gets tossed around in modern parlance, A Hocht has only come to feel ahead of its time.

As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.

—

This weekend is Fuzz Fest in Sweden, and there was a non-zero chance I was going to be there. Clearly I’m not in Stockholm, or I probably wouldn’t be on my couch, typing this while thinking vaguely about trying to shower before The Pecan’s bus drops him off from school.

I’m going to see Swallow the Sun on Nov. 29 in Clifton, NJ. That will be my first indoor show since Jan. 2020. I got an email reminder about the All Them Witches tour coming up. I might like to go see them again and take pictures and review the show, but I don’t know. Brooklyn sounds like an awful lot of people. More, certainly, than Clifton on the Monday after Thanksgiving. We’ll see how this goes. One gig at a time, I guess. I’m not exactly looking to “burst on the scene,” whatever that even means at this point.

I did some writing for Slomatics and got a new shirt from the band, was why they were on my mind. Plus they’re killer, so that was an easy pick. It was kind of a long week, and as I will, I’m dreading the holidays to come.

Speaking of, apparently next week is Thanksgiving. We’ll be in Connecticut. I’m sure what’s going on with me posting Thursday or Friday — Gimme Metal show airs next Friday; I need to finish and turn in a playlist that I’ve started — but neither do I think anybody’s waiting around to see what news I’m three days behind on. Feeling pretty run-down in general, I guess. End of the year slog. List time soon. Ha.

Also thinking I need to do the Quarterly Review sometime before The Pecan gets out for holiday break, which means I think the second week of December. I’m already getting hit up for streams and stuff (not a complaint) for then, however, so I need to sit with the calendar for about 30 seconds and figure it all out. Maybe tomorrow.

I also cannot keep up with email anymore. It’s a multiple-front battle, with Facebook messages coming in for my profile and site’s page and the stuff that comes in through actual email and the contact form. It is a thing at which I am actively failing. And that kind of stuff weighs on me. I don’t like to be that guy.

Nonetheless.

If you celebrate Thanksgiving, enjoy it. If you don’t, hug someone anyway and eat a good meal. Despite the politically problematic historical narrative behind the day, its actual celebration is perhaps my favorite of the actual-holidays holidays — that is, the ones that aren’t my wife’s birthday or an anniversary. You sit down for 10 minutes, maybe eat some turkey, enjoy each other’s company. Then do the dishes. Could be worse.

I wish you a great and safe weekend. Have fun, watch your head, and of course, remember to hydrate. So important.

Thanks for reading.

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