With a band name and an album title such as the above this was never gonna be light and fluffy or fast and spiky. The fact that I have drank too much coffee this morning certainly puts me at odds with this dirty doom quintet of tracks.
Tar Pond previously featured legendary bassist Martin Ain (C’mon Celtic Frost and Hellhammer) who sadly passed away in 2017. The band released their debut album “Protocol of Infinite Sadness” after Ain’s passing and now continuing his legacy comes Petrol. The album features members from the first album including ex Coroner drummer and lyricist Marcus Edelmann, guitarists Daniele Merico and Stefano Mauriello and the doom n gloom laden vocals of Thomas Ott. The low end is now provided by Chris Perez and a few friends drop in to add brass, voice and keys – I will let you google that or read on liner notes.
If you have not heard the band before the lazy description is a glorious amalgamation of Candlemass and Alice In Chains. Sumptuous groovy Doom with dirty fuzzy edges. Ott’s vocals are crystal clear and commanding in a gothic style. I get hints of Paradise Lost but also Interpol, Scott Weiland in STP and many more – yet he still remains distinct in his delivery.
Petrol opens with an absolute epic in the ten-minute Bomb – it’s intro is eerie and creepy like a journey in a subterranean basement (listen and you will understand) and then a bone crushing dirty riff cuts through plummeting the listener down a fathom or two whilst the drums hammer your head further. “Then I come. Like the Man. To cut you free. From your bones” Ott lays the bands stall out and his storytelling begins. A gorgeous Sistersesque flange enters and I am carried away in the oily torrent. Such utter, delightful treacle like atmosphere.
Ott oozes pain and passion much like the much missed Layne Staley, you can almost feel the scars in his larynx like barely healed razor cuts.
Blind is more upbeat but even more fuzz-laden than the opener really giving off Subpop vibes – like Mudhoney or Tad played though black silk and sulphur smoke.
“He will make you happy. He will serve you well” – thus opens Slave, a languid dark sexual fantasy offering up praise to a dominant goddess via magick laced old school Doom.
The fourth track on this collection Something brings to mind the backwoods blues from hell of Raw from the mind of Numenorean’s Roger LeBlanc. Tar Pond’s take on this style is a hot and humid wade through cottonmouth filled swamps. Ott’s vocals are submerged too sounding like my headphones have been enveloped in algae covered brackish. The track plays out like a bad trip, using both meanings for the phrase. If you have seen the film Southern Comfort you will get my meaning. Turn it up loud and let the change surprise you.
Closer Dirt begins with a spoken word section by artist Nathalie Dreier over a dreamy post rock composition. From the filth and organic soup of the previous tracks I felt cleansed and drenched in warm light. It didn’t last long.
A fuzzy riff kicks in after two minutes and things go very noise rock – feedback and distortion drag me back down. Edelmanns drumbeat is lazily simple but infuriatingly gripping and had me gripped until the sound of a 1980’s computer game loading screen kicked in and an acoustic jazz psyche track kicked in – it felt like someone had taped the Tar Pond album over another project entirely and brought the album to a confusing and exasperating end. Which of course meant I had to start all over again.
Petrol may be losing favour around the world as we as a species try to claw back our earth from the shit show we have made of it. However, in the hands of Tar Pond it is a glorious collection of atmospheric, big riff psychedelic doom grunge that takes the listener on a one way trip to the backwoods with a torch that keeps flickering on and off.
Great stuff.
(9/10 Matt Mason)
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