Something nasty is stirring in the West. Bristolians Moon Reaper have been mixing up the medicine to create a murky blend of dark sludge and progginess and the E.P. Descent is the fetid result.
Dirty, heavy riffs from the get go, these 5 tracks are packed full of grit and groove in equal measure. Big, big, mammoth breaks are elbowed out of the way by hideous vomitous vocals (is that someone hawking a loogie in the middle of opener Time Warper?).
If you are a fan of Conjurer you are gonna love these guys the hideous filth is held together by awesome song structure and quite how Morgan Cradicks vocals segue from rasp to prog clean mid word during “Spiralism” made me stop mid headbang. Don’t even get me started on the “weeeeee” pig squeally breakdown at the end. SO CHUNKY! Like vomit after eating a carrot sandwich!
“Clockwork” has a nod to Anathema with its Fragile Dreams style intro before dropping into a slam style core chug . Light on the heaviness here this is a different blend with prog meeting modern death core – my ears at first are mystified but soon loosen up and I can get on board the muso bus with the guys. The talk of Anathema is apt as Clockwork grows into a Death Doom ditty that harks back to the days of the unholy trinity of British bands plying that particular trade.
With a title like “Godeater” this track had to be a heavy tree branch to the jaw and it is indeed – covered in mossy bark and a few funky bass strings. I still prefer the vocals when they are deeper as the lighter higher notes from Craddick’s larynx are not my usual cuppa Darjeeling but that is a personal preference and nothing is lost from the brutality of this track. The track ends on a melancholy note drifting nicely into final piece “Necromancy” . I was listening to “Serenades” by Anathema earlier due to Moon Reaper sending me back down that memory lane and this final track has more of that Liverpudlian lilt about it. Layers of prog and post metal sit atop the swampy soup and the gentle passages are soon flooded by crushing torrents of extremity.
This band have a lot of promise and Descent is a great example of a young band doing what they love and doing it well.
(7.5/10 Matt Mason)
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