Another crushing noise rock/sludge squad from Down Under that has recently captured my attention alongside Nunchukka Superfly, Grey Daturas, and

Whitehorse, straight to us from the all-killer label We Empty Rooms. I first started talking to Jem from We Empty Rooms (what an awesome name for a label!) a

few months ago about checking out their releases after hearing something from the band Goat Witch online, and he ended up turning me on to all of the amazing

and immensely HEAVY music that he has been putting out for the past few years on his label, including his own band Fire WItch, a tro of two bassists and a

drummer who engage the almighty RIFF for lengthy instrumental workouts that manage to hypnotize and pummel at the samem time. Back in 2004, Fire Witch

recorded this live album during a four-night residency at the Townie Hotel in Melbourne, Australia, and although this disc has been out for awhile, it's

crucial for fans of seriously heavy low-end psych sludge. Six jams in high energy mode, sludgy but not necessarily slow, each song a complex maze of mathy

chaotic riffing and gigantic stoner doom grooves, winding through tricky song structures and rhythmic freakouts that become more nuts as the album

progresses.

The disc opens with the brief bass-bomb groove of "Corey", dropping fat blats of low end bass over scrabbly string noise and Jem's frenetic drumming, almost

like Lightning Bolt crossed with old Floor, and then they move into "What A Ball Tearer", all uptempo rocking, one bass bellowing crumbling subsonic

distortion, the other bass being slung lead-axe style, with upper register bass hooks taking the lead. The drumming is awesome, as Jem alternates between

restrained grooves, waves of tribal beats and all-out free improv chaos while constantly anchoring the songs and locking in with the dueling basses. The rest

of the album shifts between the ripped 70's heavy riffs and speaker blowing sludge and mathy post rock passages, creating little melodic motifs throughout

each jam that the band unravels and explores through the drawn out pacing, and songs like "Rat" and "Six" get pretty spacious with extended bits of minor key

post rock brooding and delicate drones that build into explosive skullblasting heaviness.

Awesome, super heavy psychedelic math sludge, crushing and groovy, and highly recommended. Packaged in a cool six-panel digipack.