Loading details…
about this album
"Florida's Black Seal make their case on the five-track 'Pyre' by stirring a cauldron of 1970 Birmingham meets 1977 London and tossing in dashes of 1980's bong rips. That all probably sounds self-contradictory, but lacing the bouillabaisse with psychedelic glaze and just a tad of sneer is about as close as you'll get to fresh these days. You'll find 'N.I.B.' heaviness here, sure. The slow, acid-dripped doom riffs of 'Scorched!' immediately craft a smoky atmosphere and you start to envision your drop-out friend "packin' that shit." He might not like it when we're thrust forward in time, if only briefly, on fuzzy hair-trigger thrash. As a whole, the opener is a dense amalgam of homages strewn with dark vibes, man. Wavy Gravy warned you about that brown acid, didn't he? The midpoint of 'On This Day You Lose Faith' glows and warms with wholly enveloping fog and viscosity, so we can't fully escape Sabbathian nods. Led on the bass of Thomas Beals, this winter sidewalk is lined more with regret than thin ice. Spitting embers into a revved-up Hetfield shuffle, this track essentially finds the band hitting every cylinder between spirals and plods. Punk's straightforward clarity shines through Astaroth Crowley's matter-of-fact vocal, echoing Rollins and Graffin but ultimately making us question whether Black Seal fit as a 'Sunday Sludge' feature. The way this track marches and announces its own presence, however, renders categorization completely irrelevant. If you absolutely MUST f
