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Godhunter Vs. Destroyer Of Light - Endsville

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    Ian Jane
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  • Godhunter Vs. Destroyer Of Light - Endsville



    Godhunter Vs. Destroyer Of Light - Endsville
    Released by: Battleground Records / Heavy Friends Records
    Released on: July 28th, 2015.
    Purchase From Amazon

    Godhunter hails from the Pacific Northwest, where doom and stoner rock seem to foster. The band is made up of Jake Brazelton on guitars and vocals, David Rodgers also on guitars and vocals, Dick Williamson on bass, Andy Kratzenberg on drums and Matthew Davis on keyboards, cello and effects. Yep, these guys have a cello player.

    At any rate, this band goes first with six new tracks, the first of which is End Time Blues, a two minute acoustic into of sorts with some gothic flavor to it. As it builds to its eerie end, a strange sample about whiskey leads into Divided States, a five minute blast of fuzz overtop of some mixed up messed up vocals - we get some hardcore style belting out and some cookie monster style grunting and groaning here and they complement each other in awesome ways. It slows down a bit as it ends but that just sort of helps it segue into track three, Dull Knives, Weak Handshakes. At six and a half minutes it's got a weird, droning intro that lets the guitar wail through some effects pedals a bit before the rest of the band, with the vocals on top, add a super thick layer of intensity to the recording. The guitars slip and slide a bit here in interesting ways, and this is an interesting mix in sound between something like Fu Manchu mixed with High On Fire and then whatever death metal style vocalist you'd want to toss into the mix.

    Cassandra Complex is a five minute piece that's got some slightly jazzy drumming that the guitars fuzz overtop of to get things going. It's a mid-tempo piece with just as much weight to it as anything that's come before it on the record, the vocals here are really intense and it's impressive in that regard but it's a little more repetitive and predictable than the other songs Godhunter have laid down. Anthropophobia gets things back on track with just over four minutes of sonic insanity. It starts with some low-level off kilter sounding recording but then after that gets you off guard it blasts and rages in a big way, hitting a noticeably faster tempo than the band has gone for up to this point. Definitely a stand out track. The Emptiness That Is Left finishes off Godhunter's portion of the record, harkening back to the mellowed out intro that started it off and letting that cello sound create some genuinely haunting melodies here. With the acoustic thing out of their system, we get some more weird sampling that leads into a strange wall of sound that in turn leads into sludge, sludge and more sludge. The vocals here are crazy, the band pounds away with relentless drive and this is a track that you can easily put on, space out and get lost to for seven and a half minutes.






    Austin, Texas' Destroyer Of Light is made up of Steve Colca on guitar and vocals, Jeff Klein on bass, Keegan Kjeldsen on guitar and Penny Turner on drums. With this record they get down with four tracks, starting with Electric Shadows. This one is six and a half minutes long and it puts guitars way up front in the mix with some fantastic drumming anchoring the fuzz that you know you want from these guys. It's on the faster side of things but not a speed metal track and you can instantly hear the band's love of Black Sabbath, especially when Colca's vocals start. He's not ripping Ozzy off, not by a long shot, but you can tell that the influence plays a big part in their sound.

    Coffin Hunter spends just short of seven and a half minutes playing with fuzz and feedback and distortion and shaping a pretty wild soundscape of sorts, using the left and right channels to toy with your ears and your mind before sliding effortlessly into doom city. Again, the shadow of Sabbath hangs heavy here, but that's okay, these guys do what they do very well. Killer percussion on this one as there are some moments here where Turner is just wailing on the kit to the point where it almost sounds like the song is going to go off the rails. It doesn't, but it adds some excitement to the track and there's some serious unpredictability to the vocals in the latter half of the song that sees the band creating their own weird sound.

    Forever My Queen is on the shorter side at just over four minutes. It's a bit more melodic and a little less sonically devastating than the last track but it's catchier for it. It doesn't stand out the way the others songs do, though it's a perfectly solid slice of sludge. This brings us to the last track on the record. Valley Of The Dead is a nine minute onslaught of doomy, sludgy wonder. There are no vocals here for the first minute and a half but when they kick in, the Black Sabbath influence is pretty obvious not just in the delivery but in the content as well. That's not a bad thing though… not at all. This is a super heavy, slow trudge through Hell and it's awesome.






    Two great tastes that taste great together! Odds are pretty good that if you like one of these bands you'll like the other. There's enough crossover in terms of what these guys do and how they do it that the appeal is certainly there. Production is strong on both sets of songs and if you're into stoner/doom/sludge metal at all, then you'd be foolish not to check this record out. Both of these bands do great work. This release is available digitally and on vinyl as two 12” EPs in a double gatefold package.

    Give Godhunter's Cassandra Complex a listen!



    Dig the video for Destroyer Of Light's Electric Shadows!



    Check out a neat video on the making of the cover art!



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