review: Wallowing

Wallowing

Planet Loss

Sludgelord Records & Black Voodoo Records

13 September 2019

Doom bands are like, “Alright, alright, man. Take it easy. Sit back and let us relax y’all with some chill tunes. Now doom time is here, babe, need something to keep you cool, and if you let me cool you one time, you’ll be my regular stop, babe.” You know how it is. Doom has drone bands to lull you to sleep with their meditation doom medicine, and epic bands that make you be spiritual and holy, and hippies that make you go, “They call me mellow yellow.” Doom has Southern dudes that make you go, “Cause as I’m free as a bird now” and stoner guys that make you sing, “Psychotic reaction, the old man dies.” Doom is easy, chill and accessible.

Forget that.

Wallowing is the kind of hideous cantankerous antimusic that it makes you wonder if they do this just to annoy people, annoy each other or play a joke on the whole doom metagenre. Check out what this cockroach-covered salad of extremity has to offer. They have a vocalist that likes to express feelings, oh so many feelings, by screaming from the top of the lungs the whole time. The whole livelong day. This person sounds like a poor thirsty soul trapped in some kind of inferno hollering for water, and no one is around to help with a drop. This person is most certainly screaming, shouting, yelling like a crazed hyena, and the only shield between you and the maniac is that the lunatic sounds about a few yards away from the microphone, so that the tortured screaming is not right next to your ear because if it were, this screaming might just be even more horrendously handsome and wretched.

Wallowing is the weirdo kids of the doom scene. The vocalist sounds like someone who just could not find other people to form a grind band or a necro black metal band with, and so this person ended up joining a sludgy noise band. Is death doom too happy? Is funeral doom too poppy and bouncy? Yup, yup, says Wallowing.

You will struggle to find a more irritating/genius/ridiculous doom recording this whole apocalyptic year of 2019. Wallowing is not so much epicus doomicus metallicus as it is horribillus noisicus annoyicus. Here’s the deal. They mostly like the slow chugging, it’s kind of a violent chugging style, but once in a while they burst into blasting parts, and we are willing to bet that it’s going to catch listeners by surprise the first time when they do it. Then, to make things even more ridiculous, they have a recurring tendency, an obsession with using the most annoying guitar feedback sounds and use them just because, you know, why not, it’s Wallowing. Have you ever been to a show at the local bar in which during the sound check the guitar makes a super high pitched noise that makes everyone put their fingers in their ears. Like, you know, that’s going to destroy your hearing if you hear it again. Wallowing likes to use that noise repeatedly on this recording. Wallowing is conducting an experiment on you, the listener. The experiment consists of making highly irritating sounds and seeing if you find the joy in it.

Doom just got a whole lot uglier when Wallowing showed up. Help us, Boris Johnson; help us, Boris Yeltsin; help us, Boris Becker. Help us, Boris The Blade. This is going to be a bumpy ride, Boris. Oh.the.fun.

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