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Wreck Of The Hesperus: The sunken threshold
29/03/10 || Daemonomania
So here’s the story on the band Wreck of the Hesperus. The bands Eyehategod and Evoken set sail for Europe in a clipper ship. Their goal? A pleasant European vacation. About halfway across the Atlantic they were attacked and dragged under by a massive cuttlefish. The cuttlefish in question then tossed their boat high up in the air for no reason whatsoever. The boat landed in Liverpool. A young bunch of mop-haired lads calling themselves The Beatles wandered up to check it out. Did I mention the clipper ship went back in time at some point? Well, it did. So anyway who should pop up on the seaweed covered deck but fucken DANNY DEVITO motherfuckers, armed with the Glaive from the non-hit movie “Krull”. He proceeds to waste The Beatles, starting with Paul McCartney (fuck that guy). The action then shifts to Dublin…
…where the actual review gets started. These guys have been on my list for a long time. An Irish band combining the swampy grooves of sludge metal with the drawn-out terrorism tactics of funeral doom? While most people would immediately give a big hell no to this match made in R’lyeh, WOH sounded like the type of shit floats my cuttlefish-free clipper ship anytime.
Sure enough, it is. Looking for cheer? You’re about as close as your mouth and the actively squirting genitals of an attractive woman. Slow, low, pounding and nasty is the word on WOH’s streets. However, these guys have a knack for making a 16 minute track flow in a slimy fashion right into your ears. In a pleasurable manner. The hissing Iron Monkey style vocals, with the occasional truly disturbing gasp, growl and gurgle echo behind the sludgetastic guitars and booming bass. Special props go out to Mr. Keenaghan on drums – the transitions from measured molasses timekeeping to frenzied assault give the songs necessary peaks and valleys.
Is it as good as if Eyehategod and Evoken got together and formed a band while awaiting their fate at the bottom of the ocean? No. Nor is this the type of music you throw on to put your girlfriend in a romantic mood, or welcome guests to a nice dinner party, or really anything that doesn’t involve self-mutilation based rituals. But WOH are quite good in their own right and have a unique mixture of both genres on their hands. I expect more chipper hits out of these chaps in the future. They better get on it or I will personally arrange for DeVito to come and reintroduce snakes to their island.
Extra props for the cool evil underseas artwork, sparse lyrics, “many thanks to Hick for his additional bottom of the barrel vocal vomits”, and the sample at the end of “The osseous tomb” – some old lady yelling about refuse, slime, muck, putrescence – it’s either from “Macbeth” or “The Princess Bride” – both pretty similar when you get right down to it.
- Information
- Released: 2006
- Label: Aesthetic Death
- Website: WOH MySpace
- Band
- Andy Cunningham: vocals, guitars
- Count Rodge: bass
- Ray Keenaghan: drums
- Tracklist
- 01. Stop The Black Coffins
- 02. Grave Signal
- 03. The Osseous Tomb (Echoes Of Winter)
