The first thing that popped into my head while listening to Black Moth's debut album The Killing Jar was how much the first song "The Articulate Dead" sounded like a near perfect cross between L7's belligerent metalpunk and the spacious, stoned-out groove of Kyuss. That infusion of sludgy crunch helped make this a lot more interesting than much of the retro-occult rock stuff that's been going around. On a large chunk of the debut from UK doom rockers Black Moth, that metallic punk vibe continues to infect a bunch of their songs, and is a big part of why I dug this quite a bit more than most of the recent albums of 70's-obsessed, girl-fronted "occult" tinged hard rock that have come in to C-Blast lately. I was pleased to see that I wasn't necessarily imagining that L7 vibe, either, after reading an interview with Black Moth front woman Harriet Hyde where she openly proclaims her appreciation for the infamous all-girl grunge group. So here you've got ten songs from Black Moth that combine that metallic grunge sound with a more opiated doom influence and a big dose of garage-level punk aggression, the recording wrapped in a haze of atmospheric reverb and bits of grimy psychedelia.

Killing Jar kicks off with the rocking fuzz-drenched fury of "The Articulate Dead", shifting between syrupy droning propulsion and faster paced tempos, followed by the saurian Sabbathain boogie of "Blackbirds Fall", which has a cool soaring chorus, a couple of pounding breakdowns that produce a rather rousing chorus, and plenty of that doomy, saurian swing. Black Moth also avoid the long, meandering jamming that plagues a lot of records in this style, keeping their songs pretty short and concise. Yeah, these cats definitely mine a familiar sound, all vintage Sabbath / Pentagram style dourness encased in Melvins-esque crunch, but the way that they streak these songs with the occasional soaring twin-guitar solo and bruise their music black and blue with a sort of grimy gutter psychedelia and hints of ragged prog makes this an album well worth repeated listens. Of course, a big part of the appeal here is Harriet Hyde's vaguely sinister croon; the girl has some decent pipes that had the guys at Beardrock.com describe as "Karen O fronting The Sword", which I'm sure will be enough to interest at least a few of you. And the better tracks on the album happen to be the ones that skew the furthest from the traditional doom sound, like the ghostly narcotized plod of "Banished But Blameless", the ominous garage punk and grating guitars of "Spit Out Your Teeth", the graveyard stomp of "The Plague Of Our Age", the bleary, raga-like drones the pulse throughout "Blind Faith ", and the crazed Hawkwindian effects that flutter across the thunderous gallop of "Plastic Blaze". Fans of some of the grungier doom rock bands like Goatsnake are going to particularly groove on this stuff. Comes in a four-panel gatefold digisleeve with booklet, all featuring the striking artwork of Vania Zouravliov.