Floridian sludge metal mainstays Hollow Leg are set to self-release their new EP, Dust, this Friday, May 3, and with just 21 minutes at their disposal, there’s a palpable no-time-to-waste vibe as the four-piece dig into “Poison Bite” (video premiere here) in a tight encapsulation of the willful stylistic growth the band have undertaken since 2019’s Civilizations (review here), their most recent LP. Like a lot of what Hollow Leg have done since the tail end of the MySpace era, “Poison Bite” is a ripper.

It’s got a massive, rolling grove led by Brent Lynch‘s guitar, with due weight pushed through Tom Crowther‘s bass and the nod punctuated by John Stewart‘s drumming, and with vocalist Scott Angelacos finding a Matt Pike-y delivery somewhere between a shout and cleaner singing, with effects-laced backing in the chorus presumably from Lynch, as well as the condensed runtime, it also defies expectation in how it digs in. For a sound that remains plenty filthy, one hesitates to use words like “refined,” but on their own terms, Hollow Leg very much are that on Dust.

“Poison Bite” begins a salvo of three sub-four-minute cuts, with “Sick Days” adding a thrashier shove to its abiding nastiness, bringing the not-screamed backing vocals in the chorus closer to the front of the mix alongside Angelacos‘ harsh-throated gnashing, and EP centerpiece “Funeral Storms” hints toward patience as it moves toward its later solo and in its relatively restrained earlier verses. These aren’t the first short songs Hollow Leg have offered, by any means, but they’re presented with a maturity and confidence coinciding with an evolutionary drive that can’t be faked.

That is, they’ve always grown from one release to the next, and they still are, but that growth feels more directed toward specific ideas on Dust than it has in the past, and that’s part of how they’re developing at this point. While “Another Day Dying” feels sharp in its early riffing, the back end with sitar-sounding effects and a muddied-up kind of psychedelic flourish is a purposeful contrast and expansion of scope, and yeah, the brooding, mostly-clean-sung Southern heavy swamp atmosphere of closer “Holy Water” hits into heavier riffing at around two and a half minutes in, but it still carries the initial mood forward, pairing its partial departure with a consistency unto itself that underscores the crafted feel of the EP as a whole.

The notion of Dust as another step in Hollow Leg‘s ongoing progression undercuts some of how than manifests throughout the five songs included, but while they remain in no small part defined by the crash-and-bash aspects of their approach, it’s worth considering just how much they’ve found their place in sludge over their years, and how their balance between extremity and accessibility plays out in this material. Its malleable nature alone, the band’s emergent considerations of ambience alongside their entrenched rawness, would be enough even if the songs themselves didn’t remain so intentionally kickass as they do.

But among the messages Dust most clearly sends is that Hollow Leg aren’t done exploring this path they’re on, and one hopes that, whatever form their next round of discoveries might take upon release, they find ways to continue forward in melding influences from within and beyond their genre. Keep getting weirder, dudes. I don’t think you’ll regret it.

Enjoy the full EP stream below, followed by some perspective from the band courtesy of the PR wire and that “Poison Bite” video, links and the rest:

In the band’s own words: “We’re always writing and playing and working on new music is just what we do, always trying to build on our sound and make the next piece a more clearly defined vision than the last. We have such a wide range of musical and artistic influences that it’s challenging to wrangle them, but we try our best to work within the ‘Hollow Leg’ mainframe and pump out something different than what we’ve done before, but also something that’s still obviously Hollow Leg. Hollow Leg is about freedom though. That’s been the mantra since the first record and we’ve always stuck to that! It’s about pushing ourselves and finding ways to simultaneously party with Metallica, Steely Dan, EyeHateGod, Wu Tang Clan, Stevie Wonder, and Pink Floyd and it somehow makes sense to us!”

Tracklisting:
1. Poison Bite (3:34)
2. Sick Days (3:59)
3. Funeral Storms (3:47)
4. Another Day Dying (4:51)
5. Holy Water (5:46)

Hollow Leg is:
Scott Angelacos – vocals
Brent Lynch – guitar/backing vocals
Tom Crowther – bass
John Stewart – drums

Hollow Leg, “Poison Bite” official video

Hollow Leg on Instagram

Hollow Leg on Facebook

Hollow Leg on Bandcamp

Hollow Leg’s Linktr.ee

Hollow Leg hit me up a couple months back and asked if I could write them an intro to the press kit going out to media for their new EP, Dust. That release is coming up May 3 and where I’ve struggled in the task is getting over the initial question of why the hell do I need to introduce Hollow Leg in the first place? Rooted in Jacksonville and based in Orlando, Florida, they’ve been at it for 16 years and have produced four full-lengths in that time, the latest of them being Civilizations (review here) in 2019, each of which has brought a new stage of an ongoing progression around a defined sound of hard-landing tonal weight, undulating sludge grooves led by Brent Lynch‘s riffs backed by Tom Crowther‘s bass and John Stewart‘s drums, and more than an edge of metal in the vocals of Scott Angelacos that cut through the distortion and establish their own aggressive stance.

Do I have to tell you any of this? I don’t think so. If you’ve ever heard them, their consistency of volume hardly seems to be trying to keep their sound a secret. They’ve never been overly hyped, and while they’ve toured their share in the last decade-and-a-half-plus, including along the Eastern Seaboard in 2023 around a third appearance at Maryland Doom Fest, their sound isn’t friendly and I think they’ve been both taken for granted and underappreciated. Civilizations marked a noted progression in their sound — every one of their releases has been a step forward from the one before it — and Dust continues the thread in an emergent lean toward melodic vocals, reminding on the advance single “Poison Bite” that Angelacos was among the small number of singers enlisted to pay homage to Earthride‘s Dave Sherman at that same Maryland Doom Fest last year, and a tunnel-bore nod stately enough to conjure High on Fire‘s slowdown moments, bolstered by a production that allows it all to coexist fluidly for its 3:34.

That’s right. Frickin’ three and a half minutes. Not a major ask. And for a band who’ve plugged away in the heavy underground long enough to be called legit veterans of it and perhaps afforded some semblance of the respect they’ve earned, it feels like even less of a favor. Hollow Leg do more to represent themselves with the feedback, thuds, crash and burst into the verse of “Poison Bite” than I could ever hope to by telling you you should already know them like some jerkwad gatekeeper. So maybe that’s been my problem all along. This shit speaks for itself, and it’s not about some social-media-FOMO urgency of ‘get the new thing while it’s new and move on a week later.’ It’s about the heart so clearly driving the band and the creative pursuit that’ll go as long as it’s gonna go regardless of scene or trend, fire, flood, plague or hyperbole. That’s who Hollow Leg are, if you needed the introduction.

Dust arrives May 3. It’s on the calendar to stream here in full on May 1, so keep an eye out. It’s a two-parter and as of last week, the band was back in the studio to work on the follow-up installment. More on that when we get there.

Here’s the video for “Poison Bite” to tide you over until then, followed by info from the PR wire.

Please enjoy:

Hollow Leg, “Poison Bite” video premiere

Hollow Leg are here for the long haul. The sludge and doom veterans have been crushing skulls and blowing eardrums since 2010, and continue their scorched-earth quest to evolve and eviscerate in 2024.

Legends of the scene, the quartet are four LPs and an EP strong, with their latest album “Civilizations” released in 2019 on Argonauta Records to critical acclaim. Criss-crossing the US to spread their heavy gospel of groove, they brutalized the stage of Psycho Las Vegas in 2017, and are three-time champions of the revered Maryland Doom Fest.

This year, Hollow Leg take another earth-shaking step in their sonic journey with new EP “Dust” out May 3, part one of a two-part EP series.

Coalescing their wide range of musical influences while still maintaining the unmistakable Hollow Leg sound, the band invite you to raise hell and headbang along to the EP’s battering ram of a single “Poison Bite” and its accompanying music video.

Relentless is the name of the game. From the opening sledgehammer of the kickdrum, “Poison Bite” takes no prisoners. The mid-tempo groove is locked-in and rock steady, inevitable in its forward momentum and ceaseless, grinding pummel. True to form, Scott Angelacos’ growling vocals roar over the noise, spitting fire and brimstone. Hollow Leg is back, and it hurts so good.

In the band’s own words: “We’re always writing and playing and working on new music is just what we do, always trying to build on our sound and make the next piece a more clearly defined vision than the last. We have such a wide range of musical and artistic influences that it’s challenging to wrangle them, but we try our best to work within the ‘Hollow Leg’ mainframe and pump out something different than what we’ve done before, but also something that’s still obviously Hollow Leg. Hollow Leg is about freedom though. That’s been the mantra since the first record and we’ve always stuck to that! It’s about pushing ourselves and finding ways to simultaneously party with Metallica, Steely Dan, EyeHateGod, Wu Tang Clan, Stevie Wonder, and Pink Floyd and it somehow makes sense to us!”

Hollow Leg is:
Scott Angelacos – vocals
Brent Lynch – guitar/backing vocals
Tom Crowther – bass
John Stewart – drums

Hollow Leg on Instagram

Hollow Leg on Facebook

Hollow Leg on Bandcamp

Hollow Leg’s Linktr.ee