ALBUM REVIEW: Vore – Opium Lord
Opium is an evocative word. Depending on who you ask, it conjures images of blissful, pain free ephemeral euphoria, or bleak, soul crushing, life ruining misery. That OPIUM LORD perfectly soundtrack the latter is unquestionable. That the five piece hail from Birmingham is, frankly, unsurprising. While the fact that Vore is only the bands second full-length in the seven years they’ve been together may speak to their record label travails, the record detonates with such an air-burst of acidic aggression that any thoughts surrounding their past are completely obliterated – there is only the heaving, rabid, immediate now.
WWCD begins with a lull of distant, fragile, reverb soaked guitar. Shifting light sunlight, dappling with moods of uplifting brightness and twinges of threat. Drums steadily come in as the track expands to fill the space, joined by distant shrieks set at odds with lush chords strums. It builds achingly slowly, fading out into a wall of noise. Lead Magnet swaggers into life, boiling over with anger amid bestial roars and piercing shrieks. Guitars whine, double kicks upping the ante, pursued by growling, gnarled, clawing bass. It comes in climactic waves of atonal guitar before dropping into a restless loop, drums exploding as the track reaches out with huge scope, opening a vortex of blind range. Stripping back into a muted reprise of the main riff before coming back murderously low and slow, it ends on sparse, wavering notes.
Centurion thumps with lo-fi drums, clattering below running bass and needling guitars. Huge, triumphant chords cascade in, doing battle with scalding shrieks, apocalyptic but peppered with moments of respite in the form of slower, doomy chords. Snaking cymbals shift as the riffs lurch into atonality, defiantly occupying space, backed by grinding, glowering bass. Descending into a towering chug, the track finally ends with a rush of cymbals, shivering as if in terrified relief. Suture is instantly bleak, loping into a broken, unhurried groove, fore-fronted vocals twisting into an animistic snarl. Skittering drums usher in blooming doom chords, a false ending opening up into groaning, protesting amps before diving back into rumbling chords. Sherwood Is Connector throws spears of twanging guitar skywards before settling into lonely, lush strums. Grunting bass and drums lock in, conjuring a sludgy strut over skipping, snapping snare. Cutting low, dredging with bass and kick drum, the track tentatively rising before exploding into world striding riff.
Columbia whistles with ethereal noise before guitars cut in hard with some killer tom. Toms echo, Nathan Coyle’s vocals are rabid, but layering them with Mike Scheidt’s unsettling breathy cleans is a masterstroke. Bass and guitar dance around each other wistfully before being barged aside by jarring, primal chugging. Tearing into filthy, stabbing riffs, its bloated, reeking mass dominates the landscape, a sheer wall of force, evoking LOVE SEX MACHINE in its intensity. Closer Gift pans feedback, steadily forming into a slow, predatory stomp. Whining guitars add a bitter air of triumph, primal toms and barked vocals moving things sluggishly forwards. Whipping away into a sudden burst of frantic, relentless pace it locks into a pulsing, breathless, unstoppable chug before stuttering into light, twinkling cymbals and a bright, gentle guitar loop that fades into empty space.
A confrontational, vicious, super-heated streak of spite, in a UK scene saturated with world-leading talent, OPIUM LORD might just have propelled themselves to the head of the pack. Despite a production job that perhaps isn’t as weighty or unified as it could be in places, Vore delivers a sonic bludgeoning with nous, depth and supreme confidence.
Rating: 8/10
Vore is out now via Sludgelord Records.
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