Another one of the limited-edition 7"s that At War With False Noise cranked out over the past year, the Black Sun / They Are Cowards split showcases one meaty track each from two of the UK's heaviest underground sludge/noise metal crews. The Ep is limited to a mere 300 copies, and comes in a double sided fold-over sleeve.

Already established on AWWFN as a heavy proposition via their Paralyser Lp on the label from a while back, Black Sun return here with a new jam called "Code Black" that's equally as crushing as what they were doing on their album. It opens up with gouts of violent feedback, as the band lurches forward into a pounding mid-tempo crush, mean and sludgy, with a mix of harsh, freaked out screaming and beefier bellowing roars over top. This driving metallic noise rock jam grinds away for a couple of minutes with lots of noisy riffing and a palpable malevolence, and then slips into a slower, stomping dirge at the end, dragging you down into the muck. It crushed quite nicely, and reminds me of a more straightforward and grinding version of Anodyne.

Then, on the flipside, the band They Are Cowards emerge with a pulverizing slab of heaviness called "First and Only". Featuring some members of the renowned UK doom metal outfit Atavist, They Are Cowards are also seekers of oblivion through the riff, but achieve it with a much more savage strategy. When the song kicks off, it's awesome, oppressive doom, grinding and glacial, but it quickly tears into a skull-hammering blend of Celtic Frost-style crush and angular Am Rep violence. Might sound like an odd combo, but these guys definitely destroy, moving from one crushing, concrete-heavy riff to another, and switching off between faster hardcore style blasts of speed and power with sickening vokills, to slower, Frostian sludge and jagged off-time beatings. I'd love to hear more from this band.