Review by Sonny for Slomatics - Estron (2014)

Slomatics are a little-known doom metal three-piece from Belfast in Northern Ireland who formed in 2004. As well as their seven full-length albums they have featured on a slew of splits with the likes of Conan and MWWB, so have certainly been around the block a few times, despite making little impact outside of the hardcore doom metal fraternity. Estron was the band's fourth full-length, released in 2014 and, for me, still ranks as their best.

The album is a concise affair, it's seven tracks clocking in at 37 minutes, which is fairly brief for this style of doom metal. It kicks off with a great one-two punch of Troglorite and Tunnel Dragger the former of which runs straight into the latter, denying any respite from the looming, thunderous riffs. It is worth pointing out at this point that the trio has two guitarists and no bassist, yet despite this there is still a huge depth to the distorted riffs and the lack of a bassist is not readily apparent. The vocals are provided by drummer Martin Harvey and are quite thin and reedy, pushed down in the mix to give that distant, heard-on-the-wind kind of feeling that is quite popular in some corners of the doom world and of which I am quite a fan, actually. Harvey's drumming is also very good, with some busy fills and crashing cymbals aplenty, his work on "Futurian" illustrating this best. A feature that sets the band apart from most of their contemporaries is their sci-fi aesthetic which they express through the inclusion of spacey synths both within the tracks generally and in interlude, a trope that puts them more in-line with a band like Ufomammut than Monolord, despite being straight-up doomheads rather than stoners.

Side A, ie the first four tracks, continues in the relentlessly punishing mode of the two openers, providing little relief from it's menacing, booming riffs, other than a short synth-led breather during Tunnel Dragger. Side B is a bit different, featuring two longer tracks, bridged by a brief space ambient interlude called "Red Dawn", which is actually quite a soothing touch after all the sonic bombardment that had gone before it. Red Dawn's ambience leaks into the beginning of the album's longest track, the closer "The Carpenter" which I have seen touted as being about film director John Carpenter, which I would say is a good shout, because those first few minutes of the track come across very much like a John Carpenter soundtrack, which always had a very distinctive feel. Then, four minutes in, a huge, hulking riff kicks in and things get seriously heavy as the riff morph into a very close approximation to the famous riff from the track "Black Sabbath" with Harvey even begging "No, no,no..."

I love this album, I love the huge riffs, the distant-sounding vocals and the cosmic flourishes that lend it something a little different. It is eregiously heavy, yet still manages to turn in some nice melodies within the riffs that stop it becoming relentlessly monolithic. It manages to do something a little bit different whilst still sitting comfortably within the conventional doom metal template and, being quite short, it is never in danger of outstaying it's welcome.