CoughI’d just had a lousy cold and then an upset stomach so when I was passed a split that thee Ed. described as “Cough and Wind” I was understandably unenthusiastic about reliving my experiences. Thankfully though it is just a slice of sludge and doom.

I mean at the very least you’re going to get your minutes worth from a sludge split.

The terribly named Cough start things off (no it is a good name really, it just always makes me want to clear my throat!) with 19 minutes of classic and quite excellent dark, brutal sludge with an almost funeral doom approach. With the most twisted vocals this side of Khanate, Athame drags and slouches its disease way through some twisted keyboard accompanied drone/doom/sludge before descending into some Ramasses style nastiness. This is suitably thick, mucus coated stuff that collapses into near chaos before the riff drags itself out of the morass and closes with belligerence and twists of feedback before shuddering to a halt in a sea of poisoned vocals. If you’ve never crossed Cough’s blackened sludge before this is a pretty good place to start; vile, thick and horrible just like it should be.

Windhand, a new band to me, offer up two shorter tracks. Well, shorter meaning 7 and 11 minutes…. Though still bottom heavy, they stretch out into a more groove laden path; distant, echoed vocals bring an almost space-rock played by Electric Wizard feel to the dredger riff of Amaranth, looping into a cyclical riff with lead cries and meditations over the top. It really is a rather fine introduction too them for me. Bone crushing with a kind of bitterness to the groove. Shepherd’s Crook, meanwhile, begins with some harsh guitar work that falls into a slow, softer riff with the trippy vocals backed by judicious use off keyboards fading into the riff. Still body bruisingly heavy of course just stoned drifting heaviness.

Two bands, three fine songs that range from nasty, wrong black bile to casually drifting through the drug addled event horizon of some black planet. Really just one sludge fans should all be shelling out for.

Excellent. And yes of course there’s a vinyl edition….

(8/10 Gizmo)

http://www.facebook.com/Cough666

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Windhand/115952841804204