SLOTH HERDER - No Pity, No Sunrise Review

 

Sloth Herder - No Pity, No Sunrise (Grimoire Records)

Release date : March 24th, 2017

Back in 1999-2000 I got into more ‘’extreme’’ and ‘’underground’’ Metal by the doors of Converge and Second Wave Black Metal essentially. Both are not related by scenes one might say, but I find Converge to be more Metal than Hardcore or Metalcore. Until this day, Jane Doe and Petitionning The Empty Sky are some of the most important albums that forged me as a metalhead. Grindcore with Pig Destroyer, Nasum, Spazz, ROT is also a chunk of my obsession for bastard music as my parents were calling it back then. They might be calling it that way if I was still living in their house and blasting this music all day long.

Sometimes, a Cult Leader or a Noise Trail Immersion rises up and shakes that sensible chord that reminds me of the blend of genres that is hard to define and successfully makes me vibrate. From Maryland, Sloth Herder is a genre redefining band that reminds me of YAITW and Nature’s. It is dissonant at times, Black Metalish other times. The guitar work is pretty interesting and not as precise as in Mathcore but it does a lot of good things. Drums are well felt and reminds of Ben Koller (Converge, Mutoid Man) with velocity, heaviness, and great grooves.

 

With No Pity, No Sunrise, it doesn’t feel as if the band was trying to follow a current trend or sound that almost every promo material tries to fit into a circle or a square. The fact that the music is tough to label helps the band and the album. However this might be one of the gems of the month of March. Fourteen songs over 34 minutes is just enough to get us hooked and stuffed but not saturated to a point where the record feels longer than it actually is. This is a strong sense of editing and knowing when it is enough. There’s no filling in here.

In conclusion, with the label of ‘’blackened doomgrind’’ I was more than suspicious about this album. I coundn’t be more wrong about it anyway. As for the inclusion of grind elements, the early Converge frantic sound and glimpses of genius guitar work, No Pity, No Sunrise was close on being a BNM™ record.

8.0