ALBUM REVIEW: The Gathering Dark (reissue) – Wo Fat
The year was 2006 when everyone’s soon to be favourite Riffians WO FAT entered the scene with a hulking slab of Texas stoner psychedelic rock. Their goal was to make crushingly heavy, groove-laden music that stayed within the paradigm forged by the likes of BLACK SABBATH, ZZ TOP, JIMI HENDRIX and other 70s rock legends. Through experimentation and creative freedom, the band hit the perfect formula: fuzz laden grooves with improvisational jam band vibes accompanied by the haunting blues that wail and moan deep within their souls. As a result, The Gathering Dark was created, and it wasted no time in leaving an impact on the stoner rock scene. Now, 15 years later, the band’s monolithic debut album has received a remaster, its colossal riffs being unleashed once again to shake the world’s tectonic plates.
The Gathering Dark is notable for its 70s-style swampy blues riffing with an equally vintage mix. This remaster breathes new life into the band’s hoodoo vision quest, adventuring down the dusty back roads of blues riffing and delving deep into the kaleidoscopic underworld of psychedelic heaviness. WO FAT’s tales of the weird, uncanny and strange are accompanied by solos saturated in murky swamp acid and an eldritch voodoo magic behind their drum grooves. The album lights the fire within the spirits of the swamp at witching hour, just like it did in 2006.
This new remaster keeps things traditional, but also shifts things to the peripherals, you feel like the album is all around you as the feedback and fuzz resonate in your ears. Despite its modern revamp, the album holds on to WO FAT‘s signature “way back yonder” vibe in keeping with their traditions of slow, hulking blues riffs that tap into your primal grooves. As phased and flanged vocals rotate around your skull, you’re caught between the beginnings of a trip and the deeply embedded, sodden roots of a Cypress tree.
The hypnotic trance state that The Gathering Dark places is you in is unusual. You’re transported to deep murky waters infested with alligators, a single lantern on a row boat shines in the pitch black night and your mind conjures up visions of ghostly beings. WO FAT channelled some voodoo witchcraft and swamp magic in 2006, but in 2021 this is revitalised tenfold. The remaster has expanded the band’s sound across the stereo field, allowing the previously stacked layers room to breathe. This lets them shine in a new light, exposing the rough, salt of the earth field holler characteristics. The dark lyrics carry eerie and apocalyptic messages through the distorted black night as you navigate through the quagmire of reaped consequences with paranormal spectres in the corners of your eyes.
The album’s title track is the most backwater sounding song on the album, utilising a deep, bluesy groove and slide guitar while Kent Stump laments in wails and hollers as if he was sat on his front porch singing about days gone by. From Beyond takes SABBATH’s riff ideology and multiplies it to create the slow, thundering rumble we all know and love, whilst Planet Caravan-style vocals trip you out on stories of an extra-terrestrial kind. They’re Coming For You Barbara capitalises on the album’s sense of being on edge, the fast-paced stoner riffs fuelling a late adrenaline rush to feed your fear.
Whilst WO FAT are archbishops preaching a familiar message to riff apostles in the cathedral of fuzz, The Gathering Dark demonstrates now more than ever their uniqueness. If ZZ TOP and BLACK SABBATH conceived their lovechild at a ritual in the deep south swamps, WO FAT would be the result, and there is no one that can match that character and feel. The groove is infectious and this remaster stands to align the album with the band’s original swampedelic vision, whilst opening it up to a whole new generation.
Rating: 8/10
The Gathering Dark (reissue) is set for release on December 10th via Ripple Music.
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