Barbarian Hermit
Solitude And Savagery
Not only are Barbarian Hermit not trying to reinvent the wheel, in their hearts it seems they’re also striving for a prewheel existence, because their
debut full-length album is pure, club-wielding, caveman sludgemetal. And you get the feeling that this Manchester five-piece would take that every bit as the complement it’s intended to be.
As meaty, fuzzy and heavy as a woolly-mammoth burger, Solitude And Savagery is stuffed with nosebleed riffs, frontman Ed Campbell’s throaty bellow and the band’s relentless groove suggesting a kinship with the mighty Clutch, while their frequent bouts of bullish brutality put them alongside UK peers such as Raging Speedhorn. There’s atmospheric doom in the oil-slick-thick Black Mass, while the creeping, hushed intro to Lifebreather soon gives way to a funereal incantation before returning to the business of down-tuned aggression that worships at the altar of Iommi.
Overall a strong statement of intent from the new savages on the block.
emma Johnston