"Hag"
06 April 2010, 08:55
| Written by Simon Gurney
This Hungaro-Swede-Englander three piece play a stoner/sludge metal, are on a small indie, but have played shows with noise-rock king-kongs Part Chimp and other up-and-comers such as the awesomely named The Hills Have Riffs. The image of them as a just-getting-it-together band that is currently touring their pants off is carried out in this short unassuming EP.Hag stomp out some caveman tunes, down-tuned guitars and hollered vocals reminiscent of Entombed. But the drumming is particularly active and multi-limbed, like an octopus galloping out on the plains, the vocals have a tinge of the unhinged wrong-in-the-head and the band keeps track lengths relatively short for this sort of music. There are some decent rocking-out bits like the start of tracks 4 and 5 the latter with particular bluesy Sabbath vigor. There are little pieces of ambient/weird noise interludes, but they feel superfluous and underdeveloped. That's the main thing here really, Hag show some nice elements, but the fact they're a three piece means everything sounds like it's on a much smaller scale than it should be, not helped by the cheap thin sounding recording, and the singer seemingly not necessarily singing in the direction of the microphone.A good drummer, nice (if under-explored) sense of dynamics, and some Sabbath/Entombed influences showing through, it would definitely be interesting to hear what they can do with some proper studio time and a bit more ambition. Bet they're pretty killer live, too (that's just conjecture of course).
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