How about some prog-sludge? Assuming
that’s even a thing. After some initial hype and strong word-of-mouth I’d got
hold of the ep that AWOOGA released
in 2016 – Alpha – and… wasn’t all
that impressed. I’m therefore not quite sure what made me bother subsequently
to investigate their debut album when it appeared this spring. But I’m so glad
I did, because it is really excellent (was that ep just dodgy offcuts, or have
they really got this much better in 24 months?). Conduit is some unholy mix of doom-sludge metal and euphoric space-rock,
with everything from Alice in Chains,
Muse, Tool, Amplifier and Hand of God all chucked in. Sheffield’s
AWOOGA (NB: don’t even think about writing it using any
lowercase characters!) have managed a neat trick here, straddling some
seriously heavy, rumbling metal and wild, celestial operatic-prog. Good luck to
the people who work at record stores and streaming services who might be trying
to categorise this. Want your head whacked in with a riff bigger than a cliff? No
worries, ‘Tabula Rasa’ will bash ya good. Want to float to the stars? Sure: ‘Blue
Rose’ will send you there on a column of light (although it’ll also kick you occasionally
during the journey). This is fantastic stuff, somehow both bone crushing and
ethereal. More please.
sample track: Temporal