ALBUM REVIEW: Fatalismo – Woorms
Hailing from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, noise-infused sludge rockers WOORMS present their third LP Fatalismo, a twisting, cavorting oddity of a record that draws in the influences of their home state and surrounding areas. After all, the Deep South has inimitable pedigree when it comes to producing some of the grittiest, gnarliest slabs of dirge over the years, and it all comes to the fore here with a healthy dollop of personality and peculiarity.
Fatalismo bursts to life with Seizure Salad and a great big gargantuan riff straight out the gates puts you in good stead for what to expect from here on. They waste no time either in diving head first into the molasses, taking a turn after 60 seconds or so to slow everything down from that thunderous start and build from the ground up again. As more feedback is added, the simple yet effective chugged guitars and the subtly increasing drums collapse into a space-age soundscape of nothing but feedback. The ideal opener then to set the scene for the rest of the record.
Quiet As Isaac follows as a more measured number without skimping on the beefy riffs and thunderous instrumentation. Whereas its predecessor seemed to deconstruct from the full band experience to a largely instrumental black hole, this second track returns for the most part to the tried and tested method of building a song from little to a lot.
It’s the back half of Fatalismo though that houses the largest gems on the record, and stands out as being markedly better than the first half. Stepping up track by track, the album really comes into its own around the sixth track And Heck Followed With Him. Even with all the melding of time signatures and the multi-layered feedback, distortion and fuzz, this is the first point on the album where nothing feels like work to understand. That’s because WOORMS have crafted it so meticulously that it feels wickedly unnatural and perfectly natural all at the same time.
Grease Him Full And Well is simply a rip-roaring good time, and carries a bizarre sense of threat in its creeping chords and walking bassline while the vocals talk about getting naked and greasing people. Meanwhile album closer Red Meat For The Faithful is an all out sonic assault, the whole band leaving everything out there as they smash through a feedback drenched backdrop to deliver something that feels urgent and panic-inducing while carrying one of the album’s most infectious riffs.
Vocally, it’s hard to avoid comparisons to Les Claypool. Frontman Joey Carbone has done a spectacular job in creating a distinct character and voice for the record: through the rest of the year, there will be no doubt that you are listening to WOORMS when the odd single comes back on shuffle in your library. In fact, there is a lot on Fatalismo that can be compared to the works of PRIMUS. Mezzo Mort in particular sounds like a long lost relic of the band’s Sailing The Seas Of Cheese era.
Fatalismo is a grower of an album. Once you get to grips with the – let’s be frank here – weirdness of it all, you recognise actually just how solid some of these tracks are. It has all the hallmarks of a divisive record, but those who take the time to grow accustomed to WOORMS‘ modus operandi will find it hard to resist the earworm bass-led grooves, the oddball lyrical content and the most characterful vocal performance of the year so far.
Rating: 8/10
Fatalismo is out now via Supernova Records.
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