Kez Whelan reflects on the passing of Ozzy Osbourne and Mastodon’s Brent Hinds, and reviews crucial new heavy releases from Human Leather, Endless Swarm, Kayo Dot and more
Damn, I miss Ozzy. I’ve been blasting even more Sabbath than I usually do over the last month or so, and thinking a lot about just how profound an influence those early records had not just on the world of music, but also my life, acting as a roadmap for my formative years and helping me traverse youth’s rocky landscape with strength, conviction and passion.
Of course, trying to explain why Ozzy was important in a metal column is sort of like a fashion magazine extolling the virtues of the sewing machine, or a fishing magazine stressing the importance of water – you don’t need me to wax lyrical about that world expanding, lightbulb moment when Ozzy’s eerie wail first hits you, because you already know, you’ve felt it too. Being firmly entrenched in metal’s grimy underbelly for so many years however, it’s sometimes easy to forget how much Ozzy had transcended the genre to become a cultural icon in his own right, and the outpouring of emotion following his passing really drives that home – even if the larger than life figure he came to represent sometimes threatens to overshadow the powerful sense of joy his art brought into the world.
I remember studying in the Netherlands years ago, when me and several (decidedly non-metalhead) friends opted to sample the country’s conveniently decriminalised psilocybin truffles, and whilst the others readied themselves by prepping the black lights and fluffing out the bean bags, I managed to sneak ‘Planet Caravan’ onto the tripping playlist. It hit just as we were all peaking, and – as it always does whenever I listen to that song, no matter what mindset or level of sobriety I may or may not be experiencing – time came to a complete halt, the confines of everyday life melted away and the vast, yearning possibilities of this ever surprising reality unfolded graciously before us, Ozzy’s deep intonation of “…as we travel through the universe” ringing out like a god damn mission statement. As the song gradually faded out, those final smoky licks ringing out into the ether, a profound sense of tranquility had gripped us all, the stunned silence in the room broken only by someone gasping “who was that?” The collective shock as I answered “Black Sabbath” was even more palpable – “Wait, what? Black Sabbath? As in, like Ozzy Osbourne? That dude who bit the head off a bat?”
The baggage that comes with becoming such a cultural icon, of course, is that for all the life affirming art Ozzy had helped bring into the world, for all the beautiful friendships forged around a love of his music, for all the depressed, lonely kids who found an outlet in his voice and lived to fight another day, the caricature of the ‘Prince of Darkness’ took a much greater foothold in the public consciousness, for better or for worse. It reminds me of David Lynch in a way, another visionary artist we sadly lost this year, in that both came to be defined in the public eye by their predilection for darkness and the macabre, despite both desperately trying to show us that the mysterious occult force that binds the universe together beneath all the doom and gloom is, and always has been, love. It’s good to remind people of that when you can.
Whilst still bracing from Osbourne’s death, the metal world has been shaken by the loss of Mastodon guitarist Brent Hinds this month too, who died in a motorcycle accident in Atlanta. It’s difficult to explain the colossal impact Remission had when it landed to those who weren’t there, but it hit like a seismic shock, its unique fusion of sludge metal and mathcore sounding completely unique and original – no other bands were combining extreme metal riffing with southern fried classic rock licks at that time, and Hinds’ intense personality and distinctive style of hybrid picking played a huge role in shaping the band’s sound. For me personally, that record was an absolute game changer – I’d already gone down the well travelled rabbit hole of Sabbath into Slayer into Napalm Death at that point, but this still felt so fresh, new and exciting. All those bands are incredible, but felt like they’d already produced their most important, pivotal material years prior to me discovering them; Mastodon, on the other hand, sounded like nothing else I’d ever heard, were effortlessly combining all my disparate musical interests into one unique, cohesive whole and, importantly, were happening right now. I practically lived inside that record as a teenager, and it still sounds absolutely unreal to this day, even considering the wild path and unexpected heights the band went on to scale afterwards.
Whilst Ozzy was lucky enough to perform one last show at Back To The Beginning, go out on his own terms and have perhaps the most fairytale ending imaginable to his long and storied life (seriously, for any cynicism I expressed a few columns ago, the event itself was actually really beautiful; a sort of living funeral in the best way, the joy written across Ozzy’s face throughout a truly powerful sight to behold), Hinds’ passing feels considerably more tragic, having recently had a much publicised falling out with his band mates that lead to him being ousted from the band before they played Back To The Beginning. It’s absolutely gutting that Hinds didn’t get the chance to reconcile and put aside whatever had pushed him apart from his friends, and our thoughts go out to the rest of Mastodon, who have handled the news of his passing with remarkable grace and must be hurting immensely right now. With the outpouring of love Ozzy experienced towards the end of his life fresh in recent memory, it feels like a stark reminder to take whatever chance we have to celebrate the people who are with us right now whilst we still can. I’m sure you’ve already been blasting Sabbath and Mastodon relentlessly over the past few weeks, but in between changing records, don’t forget to call your friends and tell them how much you love them too.
After almost a decade since their debut EP Getting To Spend Time In The Canoe and several years establishing themselves as one of the most exhilarating live bands in the UK underground, sludgy noise rock duo Human Leather have finally unveiled their first full-length album, and it was certainly worth the wait. The pair’s chaotic sound has never been captured as clearly (thanks once again to Wayne Adams at Bear Bites Horse) or performed as destructively as it is here, with the interplay between bassist Amée Chanter’s nimble, full-bodied riffs and percussionist Thomas Close’s wild, frenetic drumming feeling both tighter and more spontaneous than ever. For the uninitiated, imagine the sardonic yet skull crushingly heavy riffs of early Melvins belted out with the untamed energy of Lightning Bolt – although whilst that description certainly fit the band’s early EPs, their sound has come into its own so much and the pair’s distinctive personality shines through so strongly here, that it almost feels reductive to bandy about such comparisons, as legendary as they may be. Just check out frantic opener ‘Dark Depths And Surface Tension’ or the colossal grooves of ‘A Birthright Shame, A Downright Shame’ to get a taste for how immediate and visceral the Human Leather sound is here.
For all the album’s bluster and intensity though, there are some genuine ear worms hidden deep inside the noise; the catchy ‘Lore Of The Land’ in particular is an absolute anthem, Amée’s guttural bellow adopting a more melodic edge, as is ‘Spare Me The Pleasant Trees’, as Thomas unleashes some absurdly swift fills atop some of the record’s biggest and heftiest bass grooves. The storming ‘Momentary Masters Of A Fraction Of A Dot’, meanwhile, finds Amée’s voice contorting between triumphant yells and larynx-scraping death growls. After packing the record full of some of the absolute best examples of what this band can do, the aptly titled ‘Outro’ blasts off into unexpected territory as Land Of The Blue Star’s Joe Garrick remixes and reimagines Human Leather as an electro powerhouse, ending the album with an absolutely joyous blast of industrial noise that goes harder than it has any right to. Sterling stuff all round!
For a genre that usually favours EPs and splits, Edinburgh’s Endless Swarm have been doing an admirable job of creating satisfying full-length albums in recent years, having already proved themselves on splits with everyone from UK stalwarts like Gets Worse and Lugubrious Children to Malaysian grinders Tools Of The Trade and Japanese powerviolence legends Fuck On The Beach. The Body Hammer is no exception, dishing out all the caveman grunts, lightspeed blasting and stop-start chaos we’ve come to expect from the band, whilst also taking their established powerviolence sound on a few intriguing detours. The ferocious ‘Migration Paths’ incorporates some jarring dissonance in amongst all the blistering power chords to great effect, whilst ‘Prognosis Terrible’ makes room for a clean, sentimental riff that could have wandered in from a Hüsker Dü record before diving back into grinding tumult. The likes of ‘Verdant Modification’ and ‘Bubbling Mercurial Splatter’ allow a bit more space and atmosphere into the band’s sound, whilst ‘Deforming’ showcases them at their most intricate, with ludicrously fast drums punctuating all manner of blink-and-miss-it licks and riff embellishments.
There are some killer guest appearances sprinkled throughout The Body Hammer which definitely keep things interesting – ‘Thick Skull’ features duelling grunts and shrieks from Exorbitant Prices Must Diminish’s (and former Afternoon Gentleman) Smith and Give Over’s Steve Myles (who also painted the album’s eye boggling artwork), whilst Dropdead’s frontman Bob Otis lends his iconic, acerbic bark to the mosh-inducing ‘Primitive’, and vocalist Graham Caldwell even gets to pass the mic to his own children on the pummelling ‘Soft Weak Human’. Closer ‘Scrap Brain Zone’ is perhaps the biggest surprise though, not only interpolating the theme from the Sonic The Hedgehog level of the same name and reinterpreting it as a brash mosh riff, but also boasting a ripping guest guitar solo from P.L.F. main man and grindcore legend Dave Callier, ending The Body Hammer on a real high.
Oregon solo doom project Hell has had a busy year, with this fifth full-length (and first to ditch the numbered self-titling system entirely) following mere months after his sombre full-length collaboration with Mizmor, Alluvion. There was a real unearthly beauty hidden in that record, but if, like me, you found it just a bit too clean and reserved sounding considering the gnarlier, grittier tones these two titans have previously put to tape, then Submersus will feel like being submerged in a vat of boiling, viscous filth by comparison. Aptly titled opener ‘Hevy’ wastes no time in ramming this point home, boasting not only one of the most sickening guitar sounds in the Hell oeuvre, but some of their most immediately ferocious, swaggering riffs too.
There’s a heightened sense of groove throughout Submersus, but never at the expense of Hell’s distinctively barren, harrowing atmosphere. That propulsive force adds a real bite to the buoyant, swaying grot of ‘Mortem’, whilst lumbering lysergic closer ‘Bog’ recalls Come My Fanatics era Electric Wizard in its fuzzy malevolence. The ten minute ‘Gravis’, meanwhile, comes out of the gate swinging hard whilst gradually slowing to a gloriously dismal crawl, then gets even slower until it resembles the insides of a black hole before emerging on the other side with forlorn Godspeed-esque tremolo and haunting, monk-like chants. At a lean 41 minutes, Submersus manages to feel utterly enveloping whilst never outstaying its welcome, the songwriting throughout remaining as taut and effective as the riffs are thick and oppressive. Not just a fucking great doom record, but one of Hell’s most potent and powerful releases yet.
Following the more metallic direction of 2021’s Moss Grew On The Swords And Plowshares Alike and the subsequent mass return of several of Kayo Dot’s founding members for the anniversary tour of their classic debut Choirs Of The Eye, you’d almost be forgiven for expecting this 11th album to fully embrace the band’s prog metal roots again after years of more whimsical, synth-led experimentation – but this is of course Kayo Dot we’re talking about, a band that pride themselves on eschewing repetition and consistently subverting expectations. They’ve thrown us yet another curveball here, delving headfirst into ominous drone and eerie ambient territory on what could be the weirdest, most experimental record in their incredibly weird, experimental discography. It’s a difficult listen, eschewing the serene, relaxing approach a lot of ambient music aims for in favour of crafting some of the most unsettling and anxious soundscapes they’ve ever put to tape, with the stark hissing and distant, tortured howls of almost eleven minute opener ‘Mental Shed’ likely to scare off listeners of a more sensitive disposition before the record even gets going. The tense, uncomfortable ‘Closet Door In The Room Where She Died’, meanwhile, evokes an even more strung out and despondent Khanate, with some truly harrowing vocals from former Maudlin Of The Well member Jason Byron.
There are some genuinely beautiful moments here too – ‘Oracle By Severed Head’, for instance, feels like a vintage Kayo Dot song stretched out to breaking point, moving at a glacial pace before collapsing into sparkling flourishes of twangy, reverb smothered chords and bristling bursts of tumbling, jazzy percussion, whilst the wistful ‘Blind Creature Of Slime’ feels like listening to Disintegration era The Cure under severely heavy anaesthetic. The angelic 23 minute long centrepiece ‘Automatic Writing’ is arguably the album’s most hypnotic piece, as Toby Driver’s disembodied falsetto drifts gracefully across yearning strings and fizzing feedback. Despite the much more abstract approach, this record does feel like a companion to Choirs Of The Eye in a strange way, inverting the maximalist grandeur of that album and finding solace in the stark minimalism that remains in its wake.
Speaking of Maudlin Of The Well, Garry Brents, the man behind Texan solo death metal project Sallow Moth (as well as Cara Neir, Gonemage and countless others) has recently cited them as a big influence on this new record – and he wasn’t joking, as this is easily the most experimental Sallow Moth record so far. 2021’s Stasis Cocoon was a respectable slab of melodic, faintly proggy death metal, sort of like a weirder Dismember or mid-period Edge Of Sanity before they turned into full blown concept album aficionados, but this third full-length is a much more adventurous outing. Within the first minute of opener ‘Gutscape Navigator’ alone, Brents has traversed brutal death metal pummelling, clean jazzy breaks and technical yet psychedelic, almost Cynic-esque riffing, whilst tracks like ‘Psionic Battery’ deftly balance fiddly tech death guitar lines with spacious, serene jazz licks, like a slightly less mercurial Cephalic Carnage. ‘Aethercave Boots’, meanwhile, somehow makes an entirely smooth transition from churning, cavernous grooves to a full on Return To Forever-esque jazz fusion outro without missing a beat. There’s an almost math rock feel to the twinkling, jazzy soundscape that opens ‘Cauldron Brim Neurosilk’ meanwhile, before the song erupts in a flurry of ripping Atheist-style tremolo riffs and triumphant guitar solos.
In addition to the jazzy flourishes and proggy interludes, the death metal sections here are considerably more brutal and intense sounding than previous Sallow Moth records, with Brents’ vocals adopting a squelchy, Predator-esque gurgle and the detuned riffing eschewing some of the more old school approach of the last record in favour of sickeningly hefty palm muted chugs and dizzying Gorguts style dissonance – just check out no-nonsense rager ‘Icegorger Gauntlets’, for instance. What’s truly impressive about Mossbane Lantern is not only how finely crafted all its constituent parts are, but how well they all fit together too – whilst Sallow Moth’s 2024 Vial EP hinted at a more progressive, eclectic direction, it was considerably more scattershot and unhinged, but this album manages to feel fully cohesive whilst throwing even more influences and ideas into its melting pot.
Dublin has been producing a lot of utterly savage blackened death metal bands of late, with bands like Coscradh and Vircolac pushing the envelope in terms of extremity in recent years. Malthusian predate both acts, but it’s been a little while since we last heard from them – rest assured they are not fucking around in the slightest on second album (and first for Relapse) The Summoning Bell however, upping the ante from their 2018 debut Across Deaths and then some. If that album was characterised by its murky, distant sound, this one hits with much more clarity, whilst still retaining the band’s gritty, crepuscular atmosphere. After the eerily calming ambient intro ‘Isolation’, opener proper ‘Red, Waiting’ hits like a freight train, with exhausting hammer blasts, spiralling dive bombs and some truly inhuman guttural roars combining to create a terrifying intense wall of sound. The title track, meanwhile, achieves a genuinely disorientating effect through a clever restructuring of the same ingredients, with labyrinthine tremolo riffs forming an extremely haunting onslaught of noise.
The Summoning Bell isn’t just brutal, though; there’s a powerful sense of melancholy underpinning even it’s most relentless moments, which adds a lot of emotional weight to the record. Take the end of ‘Red, Waiting’, for example; once you’ve acclimatised to the band’s chaotic battery, that achingly sombre section at the song’s peak feels like a particularly effective rug pull moment. ‘The Onset Of The Death Of Man’, meanwhile, feels more like a necessary moment to breathe rather than a throwaway interlude, creating a surprisingly emotive soundscape that makes ‘Eroded Into Superstition’s pummelling Portal-attacking-Morbid-Angel-with-their-bare-hands riffs hit even harder. It’s the fifteen minute’Amongst The Swarms of Vermin’ that really steals the show, however, as the band slow their evil sound down to a crawl without sacrificing any of their intensity and allowing those subtle, sinister melodies plenty of room to breathe amidst their gruesome churn.