As LBGQT rights remain in the forefront of today’s political climate, so it creeps furthermore into extreme music. Mina Caputo of Life of Agony and Kat Shevil (Winds of Genocide) have been out front of the movement in metal for a while now, but it appears to be picking up. Just this month I received a promos from a LBGQT ‘anti black metal’ band called Peosphoros, and the second album from Ontario doom/sludge duo, Vile Creature.

First off, I’m going to focus solely on the music here and avoid any political debate or potential minefield, as the music is the focus of this site. Second, this is a really fucking heavy album.

Vic (vocals/guitars) and Kw (vocals/drums) have created a huge slab of rumbling, feedback drenched sludge/doom that’s a massive, droning, reverb filled descent into an post nuclear, dystopian, apocalyptic soundscape. Influences are abound such as Highgate, SunnO))), The Angelic Process, Halo, Amenra and such. The crumbling, analog guitar tone is downright nasty, even if plying the same repetitive droning lurch or crawl for a majority of the 4 long songs duration.

When the guitars kick in after a somber spoken intro to opener “Water, Tinted Gold & Tainted Copper”, you teeth will rattle and your toes will curl.  And when it settle into a steady, slow lope, its simply crushing. The vocals that range from a blackened shriek to horse shouts, to a gruff roar, are a perfect complement to the music. “Circuits, Bending and Breaking” which transitions seamlessly from the opener, has a tribal plod before a utterly huge, doomy groove lumbers into view with bad intentions and stays for the track’s squealing, heft filled duration. (8 minutes). The album’s, longest track, the 13 minute “Forest, Subsists as a Tomb”, is a pure doom monster, bringing more spoken words, crawling with ash and smoke spewing forth, but there is a sneaky melody lurking under the smoldering lurch, that could be a Light Bearer harmony. You’d expect closer “Sky, In Descending Pieces” to be a more somber, atmospheric end-cap to the album’s apocalyptic theme, but instead its has a slow, foreboding build before climaxing with an almost uplifting yet still crumbling staggering peak.

It’s a shame this is going to be one of Halo of Flies last releases, as the label is closing later this year, but this is a typically fantastic release from the label and shows they are going out on a high note, but I expected no less.

[Visit the band's website]

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