Bury Me Beneath This Rotting Earth (studio album)
by Body Void

From Mercury 04/29/2021 04:43

(Sludge. SLLUUUUDGGGE! GRRRRRR!!!! Yep, this shit is heavy and quite disgusting and quite excellent sludge and doom metal. This is the kind of heavy that you can get buried in.)

In my recent comments on the new Dvne album I mentioned that the type of sludge that I like leaves me feeling dirty, gnarly, slightly violated and just kinda dazed. I really, really liked that album, but my main gripe was it was much much more Progressive metal than Sludge in the pure sense like I tend to like it.

A few weeks later and I saw this band on twitter, I think one of the members of Knoll liked their announcement of their newest Body Void album. I checked it out on good authority (cuz Knoll is life) and I felt a happy dirty the whole way through. The bass and guitar attack on this album is that kind of attack where you can, like, hear the strings moving or something...? I honestly can't even, guys. This album kicked my ass so thoroughly with its slow and sickeningly loud roar I can't rightly form thoughts.

The vocalist, while not an absolutely show-stopping standout is so angry and almost black metal-y menace on this album. The guitars, as already mentioned, are sludgy and mean-spirited and doomy and are like being buried under rotting earth lol see what I did there (hint: look at the name of the album again). The bassist has that sort of heavy that feels wrong which is oh so right for this style. The drummer just comes in like the loud, lumbering steps of some mad mountain troll. It's solid all around.

The 4 songs that comprise this album are each 11-15 minutes and they all are distinct insofar as they do have subtle builds and grooves. But they are also unified in their sound and mood and never do I feel either 1. bored to tears by godforsaken dooomy repetition nor 2. am I ever pulled out of the mire by some wankery or absurdly over the top left turn.

What I'm saying is this album rocks hard and if you like old school, like Lysol-era Melvins or some stuff like that or really really heavy doom stuff like Dopethrone you may like the way this marries those aesthetics to create this beast while adding hateful, ill-tempered vocals like something in Godflesh or IDK something like that. Check it out.