“The music scene is dying!” is a gripe that’s often heard from many a jaded music fan – you know the ones; they go to big arena concerts, organised by faceless promoters and don’t bat an eye at paying £6+ for a pissy warm pint of Fosters. What these people don’t realise, however, is that they’re ones contributing to their scene’s decline. Scratch beneath the surface and the underground is buzzing with local bands playing tiny venues and consistently putting out high quality releases.
Two of these unsung heroes are Nomad and Wort – Nomad, hailing from Manchester, already have an EP ‘House of The Dead’ and have provided live support for the likes of Bongripper and Church of Misery. Huddersfield’s Wort are formed from the remnants of another local band called Poison Dwarf, and have released an EP titled ‘Not Your Cup of Tea’. With both aforementioned EPs put out via When Planets Collide it makes perfect sense for these two bands to buddy up and release a split.
Nomad’s side of this opus is slow and swampy while still managing to encompass enough bile and ferocity via the vocals to place them stylistically alongside bands such as Eyehategod (another band Nomad have supported). This slots nicely into the category of “angry music for angry people” while still providing a huge cascade of riffs that will give even the most seasoned of gig-goers a sore neck.
While Nomad produce a pummel of controlled fury, Wort go for all out grit. Dirty sounding rhythm sections couple with a thick wall of fuzzy reverb create the perfect soundscape for the depraved, half screamed vocals. There’s a definite air of Weedeater/Sourvein engrained within this half of the record, not just in how dirty the music sounds but also the warbled strings of the guitar and bass. ‘A New Culture of Profound’ alone makes this split worth listening to.
(7/10 Angela Davey)
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