ỤBỤRỤ - Death & Decay

Labels: Self-Released

Formats: Digital

Release Date: 15 May 2019

Tracklist:

1. HSPC

2. Rotting Flesh

3. Shaman

4. Tatters

5. The Butcher

6. The Void Of Oblivion

Yesterday, I was given the opportunity to be one of the first people (outside of ỤBỤRỤ themselves) to hear their first demo, essentially. This trio is a brand new heavy band from Leeds who're just beginning to make their first steps into the UK underground and indeed the live scene. Read on to see what I had to say about their songs...

The mysterious entity known as ỤBỤRỤ contacted me about writing something a bit different. It (or they) presented me with six live demo recordings. Not knowing whose in the band or where it’s from, I pressed play. What greeted me was heavy, groovy noise with bags of sludge on first track HSPC. 

Experimentation is clearly at the top of the musical list, as Rotting Flesh is an off-kilter doom song that doesn’t sound like the title would suggest. Imagine if Meth Drinker worshipped at the alter of old-school death metal and instrumental noise-rock, you’d be close to summing ỤBỤRỤ up. The more I listen to this, the more I begin to picture the miscreants that might be responsible for the noise herein, but there’s no harm in being kept guessing at the same time.

Shaman is a hard one to pin down. Black metal, sludgy metalcore-like breakdowns and bluesy bass-lines are all at play. The vocals are deep bellows that will carve deep into your soul. Forgive me if I’m plucking all the sub-genres out of the sky but this is hard to categorise. It’s very good. There’s a swagger about Tatters but that’s due to the band trying to fit more into less. It’s a shorter song and it chugs along nicely with a heap of dissonance and time-signatures that seem impervious to the norm.

ỤBỤRỤ does a slow once more on The Butcher, which has atmosphere flowing from every orifice. Passages that switch between psych/doom and cymbal-led death blasts with improvisation everywhere you turn. Last demo song The Void Of Oblivion is another murky bottom-feeder. Over seven-minutes of raw and progressive madness turned down to half speed. 

There’s an obvious focus throughout this and all of the songs presented here, and while this may be the first utterances from a band just born, I have a feeling that we’ll be hearing lots more from ỤBỤRỤ very soon.

You can stream all of the songs here via Soundcloud below:-

Keep up to date with ỤBỤRỤ's progression and live show announcements via their Facebook page here - https://www.facebook.com/uburuBand/