Lair - The Hidden Shiv (2024)^{Release ID: 49294}

Richmond three-piece, Lair, are back with their sophomore, four plague-ridden years after the self-titled debut. They play bereft and pissed-off sounding sludgy doom metal that sounds very much like a band with an axe to grind about many things, but particularly the bleakness and futility of existence, so if you come into this with a sunny disposition, then don't expect to leave it feeling the same!

First off, it does plug into the post-pandemic, confused and bereaved mental space very well, giving vent to a hopelessness and desperation borne of things out of one's control as expressed in heavy, towering and slothful riffs, primitive-sounding drum beats and a vocalist who's throat-wrecking howls to the sky are the epitome of bleakness. So, if that doesn't float your boat then you are definitely looking up the wrong alley here, but for those who worship at the altar of acts like Eyehategod, Acid Bath or Toadliquor, then come on in my red-eyed friend and pull up a chair. OK, so the vocals do become a bit samey and you find yourself wishing for a change in delivery or inflection and the riffs aren't the most inventive, but this type of sludgy doom is more about the overall aesthetic than individual moments, the repetitiveness seeking to add layer upon layer of despondency upon the listener to achieve that atmosphere of alienation, desperation and anger, that anger being the prime ingredient of good sludge metal I would suggest. Even saying that, this isn't completely monolithic, with an instrumental breather in Something’s at the Door, it's gentler sound setting up the faster, almost death metal of (To Step Into) A Noose of One’s Own. Although normal service is soon resumed and they get back onto the dreary, doom-laden and sludge-filled treadmill for the final three tracks.

The Hidden Shiv is a fairly solid slab-o'-sludge that ticks a lot of the right boxes and, in all fairness, is growing on me the more I listen to it, but I wouldn't speak of it in the same tones as the earlier-mentioned sludge flag-bearers. But that said, they have come on a fair bit since I last checked them out via their 2018 EP "In Exile" and they are definitely moving in the right direction.