BLACK SHEEP WALL — No Matter Where it Ends (review)

BLACK SHEEP WALL — No Matter Where it Ends album cover Album · 2012 · Sludge Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
3.5/5 ·
Time Signature
Agnostic demon...

Genre: sludge metal

I have read a couple of reviews of this album, and it really seems that US sludge-metallers Black Sheep Wall's "No Matter Where It Ends" has had a raw deal with the reviewers. The reviewers criticize the album for being monotonous, repetitive, slow, and lumbering.

And in a way, they are right. The songs on this album are very minimalistic, drawing on slow and heavy riffage almost sloppily performed on very downtuned and distorted instruments, accompanied by slow, dragging drum beats. The riffs are usually quite simple and incredibly sludgy, and, rather than making use of many riffs per track, Black Sheep Wall have opted for the method of repetition. Thus the average song on this album is slow and heavy, evolving around the repetition of a few sludgy riffs.

This minimalist approach definitely does make the music sound monotonous, and the use of harsh hardcore-ish vocals along with the absence of any leads or other melodic devices does not exactly help generate variation.

Now, the question is, is this a good or a bad thing? The reviewers seem to think it is a bad thing - that it is a symptom of artistic failure. However, what Black Sheep Wall deliberately set out to do is exactly to create some minimalistic slow and sludgy music. So, I'd say, they succeeded. I'd say all of these features are a positive thing and an indicator of artistic success.

True, "No Matter Where It Ends" really tests the listener (not just musically, but also through the use of noise-based soundscapes that pop up between the songs), and I must admit that it is incongruous with my own personal taste in music - I do love heavy and slow music, but I am more into doom metal than sludge metal. But that does not mean that "No Matter Where It Ends" sucks - not at all, Black Sheep Wall have met all the criteria that they set up for themselves, and they definitely deserve credit for that.

If you dig slow, dragging, droning, sloppy and sludgy music with an injection of noise and minimalism as the main artistic ethos, then you definitely should check out Black Sheep Wall's "No Matter Where It Ends".
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