Saturday 9 August 2014

Lockersludge - Drawing Lessons


I went to sleep last night thinking about vinyl and woke up thinking about it. Records and music are consuming my life and don't even get me started on tapes and CDs. My room is now starting to resemble one of those top-to-bottom record shops you get in most seaside towns.

That little paragraph leads me nicely onto this review. Devon sludge three-piece Lockersludge sent me their latest mini-album Drawing Lessons on CD a while ago and after already reviewing their previous release, Falling On Our Faces, I was excited to hear how they've progressed with their new line-up and new found live experience. Lockersludge are another band who are doing things right in my eyes. They're unsigned yet they've self-released all three of their records, while also managing to get plenty of exposure at both gigs and on the radio, following Drawing Lessons release.

Tracklist:-

1. Burden Of Pain
2. Guilt, Anger And Aggression
3, Drawing Lessons
4. The Beard Of Doom
5. Burn In Hell (CD only bonus track)

Lockersludge instantly slam into Drawing Lessons, with album opener Burden Of Pain. The live recording provides and earthly, organic sound. There’s plenty of riffs from Andy Lockyer, grooving bass from Brew and Mark Lockyer’s vocal/drum combo provide plenty of muscle. They’ve still got the sludge/hardcore sound that previous album Falling On Our Faces introduced me to.

There seems to be less of the bands initial sludge/doom influence on Drawing Lessons. Guilt, Anger And Aggression is mid-paced and features clean vocals, which were only really hinted at in the album’s opener.  The title track has some great grad-metal riffs to start with. It’s simple song-structure and Lockersludge’s uncomplicated instrumentation make it sound pretty heavy! 

Any record with a song called The Beard Of Doom, is definitely worthy of your attention. The only downside for me is that there isn’t any doom present in the song. Lockersludge play to their hardcore/sludge strengths and favour the addition of some cool heavy-metal flourishes, but some really slow and mournful doom passages would have really been the icing on the cake.

Lockersludge have done something really cool with this release. Instead of releasing the bonus-track and a download only one, they’ve flipped it on it’s head and added to the CD release. If that doesn’t prompt more people to buy the physical version of this release, then clearly there’s something wrong with UK music fans! Musically, Burn In Hell features some great riffs and it’s Lockersludge’s homage to the occult. Don’t worry though, it’s also really catchy, which shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise (but does for some reason!).

There three dudes are in pretty privileged position. They are able to play in a band and make music that they are extremely passionate about and they have the bonus of being able to bring it a wider audience, whether it be via their CD and digital releases or by playing live. That may seem like a pretty obvious statement but when you think about it, we’d all like to be in that position. Lockersludge are writing music they want to hear and having fun while doing it. Hats of too them!

You can stream Drawing Lessons (minus the bonus track) here:-




You can purchase Drawing Lessons as either a name-your-price download or on CD from the band's bandcamp page above.

Lockersludge Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/Lockersludge

No comments:

Post a Comment