Trident, The - Unearthly Trance

US Sludge metal entity Unearthly Trance is a curious beast. The band has a strong interest in experimentation with both recreational drugs and occultism, with pentagrams, cannabis leaves and the like featuring prominently in their artwork. Their musical influences are equally varied; whilst on the one hand they borrow from sludge pioneers Crowbar and Neurosis, they also lean heavily towards the dirty, punkish black metal sound championed by the likes ...
...a refreshing mix, executed with great skill. The songs lurch frequently from crushing sludge/doom riffs with barked hardcore vocals to breakneck punk sections with harsh black metal screams, although each song retains a firm identity of its own, with variation in musical and vocal style present throughout the album. The drums are organic sounding and varied throughout, and the vocals range from the aforementioned screams to clean singing, ominous ... more

US Sludge metal entity Unearthly Trance is a curious beast. The band has a strong interest in experimentation with both recreational drugs and occultism, with pentagrams, cannabis leaves and the like featuring prominently in their artwork. Their musical influences are equally varied; whilst on the one hand they borrow from sludge pioneers Crowbar and Neurosis, they also lean heavily towards the dirty, punkish black metal sound championed by the likes of Darkthrone and Celtic Frost.

Its a refreshing mix, executed with great skill. The songs lurch frequently from crushing sludge/doom riffs with barked hardcore vocals to breakneck punk sections with harsh black metal screams, although each song retains a firm identity of its own, with variation in musical and vocal style present throughout the album. The drums are organic sounding and varied throughout, and the vocals range from the aforementioned screams to clean singing, ominous chanting and whispering, and even Faith-No-More-esque Mike Patton Style crooning. Some excellent rock/stoner riffs crop up repeatedly alongside the crushing punk grooves, and the album slows in places to a funeral doom crawl before regaining its momentum once more, before eventually disintegrating into a vortex of howling noise, deranged ranting and disjointed, ritualistic tribal drumming.

An excellent piece of drug-crazed, blackened sludge.

Tracklisting-

1. Permanent Ice 04:48
2. Decrepitude 03:54
3. You Get What You Want 04:01
4. The Air Exits, the Sea Accepts Me 04:29
5. Scarlet 07:05
6. Wake Up and Smell the Corpses 05:22
7. Firebrand 06:04
8. In Self/Infinite 04:41
9. Where the Unbelievable is Ordinary 05:17

Total playing time 45:41

Summary: A must for Darkthrone and Neurosis fans alike.

 

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