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| Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Bastmusic/ Bancamp: http://bastmusic.bandcamp.com/ |
Bast - formed in London in 2008 - are denizens of a blackened-doom realm. Their sole full-length, 2014's Specters, is a communion of a frantic and wretched tremolo-led black metal and intense, reverberating atmospheric sludge. Slabs and chugs of pure unrelenting doom, delivered beneath cavernous battle-cries, morph into moments of even slower - swampy, with floating psychedelia - steadiness (as in 'Denizens') or moments of mid-paced groove ('Spectres'); at other times, as in the opening track 'In the Beginning' doomier rumblings make way for lightning bolts of black-metal - vocals shriek and writhe with a much greater vulnerability as songs explode and break down. These transitions work incredibly well and really give the album a sense of unpredictability.
Bast's music is vast and eclectic with touches of various styles: Isis-esque ambiance, Neurosis-esque grit and Sabbath-esque grooves merge with a melodic black-metal intensity. Spectres is 42-minutes of diverse and powerful extreme metal that is neither doom not black-metal, neither sludge nor drone: it's a truly eclectic mix of styles and influences that progresses and moves without at all seeming fragmented or ill-fitting.
Yesterday I talked of the diverse range of doom/sludge/drone/stoner bands in the UK, Bast are one such band whose debut album is far more proficient and interesting than bands ten times more established. Akerblogger will be featuring another dose of doom from the UK featuring soon as there is a gig coming up that I'm likey to write a review of: Slabdragger, Ohhms, Morass of Molasses and Mower in Liverpool.
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