Issued by the French label Paradise Noise, Desolate is a new album from a little-known power trio from Ohio called Centrifuge that have been creating a dark and hypnotic brand of trippy space-doom for a couple of years now; actually, these cats have been at it since 1995, quietly releasing demos in the regional metal/skuzz underground and playing around their home town area, keeping a low profile in the underground metal scene at large but knocking out some interesting and peculiar heaviness that (like a lot of bands from this particular area) blur together a couple of different styles/sounds into something bludgeoning and intimate. Personally, I hadn't heard of Centrifuge until I stumbled across an interview the band did on the Hellride website that piqued my interest, and further investigation into 'em revealed a new album that just came out earlier in summer '07. To date, this looks like the last thing that the band has released, although it would appear that they are still active in the industrial wastes of Ohio.

So you get five songs on this disc, and they get pretty long as the band has a tendency to jam out on extended minimalist riffs and stretched out psychedelic solos. Centrifuge are pretty crushing amidst all of their meandering though, stripping their stuff down to a spartan selection of heavy, pummeling riffs and machine-like drumming that sometimes gives it an almost Godflesh / Head Of David post-punk infected industrial-metal vibe, which of course scratches one of my primary itches. At the same time though, there's a more prominent combo of Sabbath / Vitus / Obsessed-style old-school doom, with the offbeat old-school Ozzy-esque vocals diffused to an icy chant, piling on lots of percussive riff hammering reminiscent of both Helmet and Fudge Tunnel, and even a faintest hint of primal deathdoom in the Peaceville tradition. Like I said, it's a bit of a mishmash, but Centrifuge melt it all together nicely.

And again, there's that raw psychedelic quality to some of the guitar-work that additionally twists everything. Things get especially epic-sounding when the guitarist wails those wandering, ethereal space rock leads that slowly rise and dissipate into the darkness, while the rhythm section is just fuckin' grinding out these burly, skull-bashing grooves. Really been digging this disc, with its early/mid 90's vibe that echoes that moment in time when some great, underrated heaviness had been coming out from the nether regions between pigfuck, doom rock, and more abrasive strains of metal.