Man, instrumental doom metal bands have been crawling out of the woodwork lately; just here at Crucial Blast, we've been picking up some killer albums from bands like Mills Of God, Serpentcult, Caldera, Endname, that new one from thunder-sludge duo Sardonis, and now we've got this debut album from the Aussie power trio Atolah, who toss their sizeable bong into the ring with their own stripped-down, monochrome form of cloven-hoofed downer metal, released on the always-heavy Psychedoomelic Records.
These drug-doom sculptors approach their heavy, narcotized jams as if they are soundtrack pieces, the lengthy tracks carved out of monstrous bass-heavy grooves and sludgy riffs that are cloned straight from Sleep/Electric Wizard's collective genetic soup, tracks like "Dead Leg", "Down It or Leave It", and "El Duce" all inhabiting that dank, pot-smoke filled space in between Dopethrone and Holy Mountain. A couple of the tracks have some weird non sequitur film samples that are laid over the beginning of the songs, but that's it as far as any sort of vocals go; it's otherwise pure plod, the guitarist whipping thick streaks of feedback around in what almost approaches a solo, slashing across the fuzzed out hypnotic crunch with thick tendrils of amplifier howl while the rhythm section lays down its pummeling bottom-heavy dirge. You probably already knew if this was your bag or not when I said "instrumental doom", but if you do dig this kind of heavy riff soundtrack (and it IS all about the riff), these guys supply the goods. And fans of all of that newer Sleep-worship stuff on Meteorcity (Whitebuzz/Flood/Black Pyramid/Elder) might find Atolah worthy of investigation as well. The limited edition disc comes with a vinyl sticker.