Dridge - Dying Out 2xLP
On Dridge’s 2021 vinyl full-length, there was an undercurrent of pop-melodicism to their heavy grunge riffs, but not even the skeletons of such endeavors remain here on the follow-up, Dying Out. See, this is pure epic doom-metal – released in one of my favorite epic doom-metal formats, three songs on three sides of twelve-inch vinyl – that harbors no hooks, no verse/chorus comfort, nothing besides the dreariest, heaviest sludge. Solid move! Even with twelve-minute-long songs, there’s something about Dridge that feels punk, or at least punk-indebted… it’s doom-metal, sure, but performed with such spite and disgust that it feels like metal can’t fully claim it as its own. Kinda like how St. Vitus looked/sounded on those Black Flag tours, authentically metal yet authentically punk at the same time, if more spiritually than sonically. The strings here are downtuned almost past the point of being able to functionally reverberate, the drums keep painfully-slow time with some inspired patterns and fills (that’s gotta be tricky at these speeds), and the vocals sound like a five-hundred-pound monster awoken in his cave. Fans of Eternal Rot won’t be disappointed! It’s a big shift from what they sounded like only two years ago, but their evolution (or tragic mutation, as it were) is ace. - Matt K, YellowGreenRed
World Gone Mad Records