[PR: Anubi Press]
[older release, never too late to be highlighted…]
A secret to share, a promise to be kept…
My first acquaintance with Waste Cult was at the end of 2022, shortly after this Bologna, Italy based act released their untitled debut EP. It was a digital-only release, and little later the band self-released a tape edition too. Now, after three years of relative silence, the band returns with their first full-length, called Blame. It was recorded and mixed at the Vacuum Studio with Enrico Baraldi, and eventually mastered by Claudio Adamo (Fonoprint Studio).
For the official release of this album, the quartet (Claudio Fragnito - d & v / Francesco Di Fabio - g & v / Stefano Opipari - b / Silvia Gattani - g) signed to my dearest Aesthetic Death label, releasing this eight-tracker in a six-panel digipack, limited to 300 copies. It comes with nice, decent graphics, courtesy of drummer and vocalist Claudio, with pictures in dark-sepia colors, neatly depicted on a white background. The digipack contains the lyrics, in English, too, by the way, in case you want to sing along.
Blame, which clocks forty-six minutes, does not reinvent hot water, the wheel, or Doom Metal. Yet then again, this album is a superb example of aforementioned, no, not the hot water nor the wheel, yet ingeniously composed traditional and timeless Doom Metal an sich. It is that kind of Doom that combines elements from the Old School with rather Prog / Post / Stoner oriented elements, and even marvelous hints of (Blackened) Sludge (example: the grandiose main riffing at the start of Delirium Of Manners, amongst others). It’s like a seemingly complex meal preparation: a bed of traditional and grandiloquent Doom, seasoned by progressive herbs and sludgy flavors, and finished by a powerful coating of subtly injected post-epic spices.
It means that Waste Cult offer the audience a fine-tuned experiment of sonic open-mindedness. The better part indeed floats in a stratum of rhythmic, pompous, melodious and harmonic Doom. Sabbathesque leads and psychoid solos, grooving drum patterns, low-paced four-strings, hypnotic melodies and conjuring voices (mind the impressive variety in key-timbre) are like the spine of this adventure. But there is so much more going on. Eccentric breaks and semi-alternative loops (without avantgarde exaggeration), many Sludge-laden riffs, semi-acoustic intermezzos, subtly built-up tempo-changes, heroic passages (mind the ‘classic’ introduction of Maze, for example), innovative percussion patterns, droning string-lines; it’s just a selection of details that define this band’s / this album’s delicate performance.
As said, Blame is ‘tradition’ in essence; don’t get me wrong. The album’s roots go back to the purest basics for sure. But without disrespecting the ancestry of this aural foundation, it is the finicking, even captiously precise injection of sonic subtleties that trespasses. Traditional Stoner Doom 2.0 or something?... Recommended if you can appreciate stuff à la Windhand, Conan, High Priest Of Saturn, Huata etc...
https://www.aestheticdeath.com/releases.php?mode=singleitem&albumid=6700
https://wastecult.bandcamp.com/album/blame-2
https://enricobaraldi.bandcamp.com/album/blame