Artist: Iron Walrus
Title: Insidious Black Sea
Genre: Doom/ Sludge
Release Date: 11th April 2014
Label: Redfield Records
Review Flash
IRON WALRUS is a noisy doom/ sludge band from Osnabruck, Germany formed in 2013. Among the influences the band names for their musical approach are: ST.VITUS, UNSANE and HELMET. Their music is viscous, dark and sometimes very disturbing (‘Erdbeermund’ is not bearable for normal human beings). These guys had 1,500 clicks in the first seven days, their two demo tracks were available over REVERBNATION. ‘Insidious Black Sea’ is IRON WALRUS’ debut and they will soon start a tour as support for CROWBAR. Once again I get the impression that doom/ sludge doesn`t care about vocals (which I do, I care very much) that will always be a drawback for me. This record is not a bad one (‘Erdbeermund’ on the other hand is a steaming pile of shit, but so is the original and Klaus Kinski altogether). So yeah the music is quite okay when played in the background (to listen loudly to them I would need some serious vocalist at the microphone or a palpable structure in their music). The musical surrounding in the song structure is tuned down (yeah it`s doom) and played with weight but the guy at the microphone called “Aufi” just bellows and shouts it all down negating every attempt of the overall sound to be more than noise someone paid for to be recorded…
Conclusion: IRON WALRUS is just not my cup of tea, might be good for aficionados who love sludgy metal but it lacks direction and hook lines so I am out.
Rating: 5.5 / 10
