Review by Sonny for Floor - Oblation (2014)

Apparently Oblation is a comeback album for Floor after they had reformed in 2010 following a split in 2004. Guitarist Juan Montoya played in Torche in the intervening years, a band I am a little more familiar with than Floor (this being the first I have heard of them).

So the genre tags claim this to be a stoner/sludge release but I don't hear much sludge metal here at all. I think Daniel mentioned during his Dopesick review how the sludge tag is misused and this is a prime example. Sure it has a quite thick and sometimes (small 's') sludgy guitar tone, but the vitriolic vocal delivery that I associate with true Sludge Metal is completely absent. For me, this is an out-and-out stoner metal release, so as such how does it stack up?

Well, Oblation is one of those albums that is perfectly fine while it's playing but leaves no lasting impression and doesn't exactly have me searching for the replay button. Each track is not that dissimilar from the last, they have a decent stoner riff, there's some laid-back sounding vocals, maybe a bit of lead work, sometimes a catchy melody... and then it ends - rinse and repeat. Very rarely the band may throw in a stray doom riff, but that's about it, except for Homegoings and Transitions which is even more laid-back and sounds like some form of stonergaze. There really is very little other than that. I quite like the guitar sound, but otherwise this is unremarkable and I really can't whip up any more enthusiasm for it than that I'm afraid.