Moloch/Haggatha - Split 7"

Earlier this year, Moloch (the UK sludge act) and Canada's Haggatha joined up to release a two-track split, that ended up seeing the light of day with help from Dry Cough Records (UK), De Graanrepubliek Records (NL) and Choking Hazard Records (Can). This followed up Moloch's previous two split records with Meth Drinker and Ensorcelor, so it had big shoes to fill and expectations to smash.

Moloch have been active since 2007 and have one full-length to their name is "Possession", which was released in 2011. They've mainly been releasing splits since then including the aforementioned ones. Moloch also has links to UK label/distro Feast Of Tentacles, for those who don't know. Vancouver's Haggatha are of a similar age and have released two previous EPs and two albums. This split marls their first recorded material for two years. Their drummer also plays in Bison B.C. and appeared on the second 3 Inches Of Blood record, Advance And Vanquish!

Tracklist:-

1. Moloch - Head Of Coil
2. Haggatha - Time And Suffering

Moloch’s side of this split is full of stop/start groove and an urgency, that only they seem to possess. More recently, Moloch haven’t favoured overly long slabs of sludge. Head Of Coil slithers it’s way through just over four-minutes of bass-laden feedback and minimal growls. Sometime less is more and Moloch don’t over complicate things.

This is my first experience of Haggatha, but the prove to be perfect split companions here. They contain more melody, but at the same time they are darker thanks to the low/high vocal attack they spew forth on Time And Suffering. The guitar noise at two-minutes is squalidly low yet thick like molasses. This song fits perfectly with Dry Cough’s modus operandi, which is to continually find and release the slowest of the slow.

There seems to be more sludge bands around now than ever and picking your way through them can be hard. Just stick this on and in ten short minutes, you’ll have found two of the best.

Stream the whole thing here:-


Grab the vinyl from the following labels:-

Dry Cough Records (UK) - http://www.drycoughrecords.com/products
De Graanrepubliek Republiek (NL) - http://www.degraanrepubliek.com
Chocking Hazard Records (CAN) - http://chokinghazardrecords.blogspot.co.uk

Social media links to the bands and labels are below too:-

Moloch Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/molochsludge
Haggatha Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/pages/Haggatha
Dry Cough Records Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/DryCoughRecords
De Graanrepubliek Records Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/Graanrepubliekrecords
Choking Hazard Records Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/pages/Choking-Hazard-Records