Now available on vinyl, heavyweight 10" black vinyl to be precise, in a full color jacket and a printed full color inner sleeve, and limited to 500 copies!

After 2 years, the mighty Fistula returns! Following the release of their 2004 split CD with Burmese that came out on Crucial Blast and their appearance at the 2005 installment of the Emissions from the Monolith festival in Ohio, Fistula lost a drummer and entered an extended hiatus while members went on to engage in a bunch of other musical projects (Ultralord, King Travolta, Rue, Kingfiregoat, Son of Jor-El and a shitload of others...). While all of those bands transmitted a variety of gnarly, heavy tuneage, none ever came close to capturing the sheer sonic weight of Fistula. I can't think of another band, aside from Eyehategod of course, that so perfectly fits the term sludge; listening to their Idiopathic and Hymns Of Sumber albums is like having a mudslide sweep over you in geologic time, a negatory onslaught of sludgy riffs tuned to bone-shaking low frequencies, bulldozing over you repeatedly. Might sound like hype, but I still think that Fistula is on the A-list for Heaviest Bands In The Universe. It's quite fucking exciting then to come face to face with Fistula reborn on For A Better Tomorrow, a five-song EP that comes in right at 22 minutes, and which liberates some of the band's most devestating material of their career. Jesus, this thing looks tough; the disc artwork is filled with images of satanic gang signs, brass knuckles and knuckle knives, and a band pic of the Fistula guys looking kinda irritated in some side alley (although if ya look really close through the artwork, you'll also find some cutesy doom drawings from Monarch!'s Michell!). Now featuring former -16- drummer Jason Corley on drums, Fistula sound even more pissed off and murderous than ever: on "Six Hundred And Sixty Six", "The Master" and the title track, they slog through colossal sludge hate, like an bastard spawn of Grief, Crowbar, Melvins, and Eyehategod, as Corley's metronomic pummel and Corey Bing's detuned riff battery suffocates everything in the room and tries to take it out to the alley. But then there's also "Upside Down": one of the reasons why I love Fistula so much is that, on every one of their releases, they manage to break up the hateful, hypnotic slow motion stomp with one song where they a) launch into an awesome speedy crust blast that always reminds me of a more lethargic, doped-up Disrupt, but then abruptly stops and shifts halfway through the song to b) deliver an unfuckingbelieveably soul annihilating hardcore breakdown that sounds like a Cro-Mags riff in heavy gravity. "Upside Down" is where they bust that little party move here, and I dare ya not to start walking through walls and heaving cars through the air when that riff kicks in. Holy shit. Another reason why I love Fistula? Corey Bing's vocals. What the fuck is that dude doing to his throat to produce that shredded snarl? It's an awesome vehicle for Fistula's ridiculously negative, bitter and violent lyrics, and has always sorta reminded me of what it mighta sounded like if Blaine Cook from The Accused had fronted Eyehategod. And just when I thought that my skeletal structure couldn't withstand another one of their lava riffs, they whip out the acoustic guitar for the last song "Friend Of Mine", a Nirvana-esque ode to distrust n' betrayal which is actually pretty creepy when you hear it, and close out the disc in a dark dead stare of contempt. Welcome back, guys!