⋘Arising from SLOTH HERDER's second and most recent outing - "Abandon Pop Sensibility" (released in December 2012) - the track "Cowards Of The New Age" is my personal favorite track on the effort, though that's not to take away from the general greatness and exceeding talent of this Maryland-based grindcore band.

As the review from NO CLEAN SINGING (blog) states below, however, to deem Sloth Herder a grind band and solely a grind band would be a misnomer; this talented group of musicians combine a number of seemingly contrasting sub genres of extreme music and ultimately create a sound all their own.

Be sure to check out their Bandcamp page ASAP to hear the rest of the EP in question, as well as their first release.⋙

◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ BAND BIOGRAPHY & INFORMATION ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

"Sloth Herder are a kind of grind band (I wouldn’t call them that exactly, more on why later) from Pennsylvania and Maryland and were formed in 2009.

They’ve released two EPs and a four-song EP in February of last year called Sluggard EP. Another, more recent, six-track EP was released on December 21st called Abandon Pop Sensibility. They jokingly posted on Facebook: “the ‘Abandon Pop Sensibility’ EP will be available December 21st, 2012, just in time to usher in the new age of consciousness… or something.”

So, in the introductory paragraph for Sloth Herder I said I wouldn’t exactly call them grind. They play grind, predominantly, but a more transcendental version. By that I mean they go outside of the grind genre. You have grinding guita- wait a second… I thought I was listening to grindcore, not doom metal… what the what? That’s right, a grind band that has doom passages. Some guitar notes even sound like they were pulled from a black metal album.

I’ve been told by grindcore guru Phro, that Clinging to the Trees of a Forest Fire have a doom sound as well, but I don’t know much about them (thank you Islander and Phro for your feedback about the sound of Sloth Herder, by the way… I was a little confused by them). Additionally, the vocals go from black metal rasps to the typical shrieking and growling of grindcore. So now we have a blackened doomgrind band. Yay! Arbitrarily making up genres!

But in all seriousness, Sloth Herder play grindcore but go outside the mold to do what they do, and I applaud the music they are making, whether or not they were going for grindcore with doom passages and black metal vocals.

The guitar plays great riffs and the bass is high in the production, so much so that this bass-deaf listener doesn’t even need to listen for it. The bass is crushing, and I like its important role in this band; while my experience with grind is limited, I can’t say I’ve heard a grind band with a bass this high in the mix before and it adds a lot of heft to the music (it’s higher in the mix on Abandon Pop Sensibility than on Sluggard EP, but still plays a big role). Now and again, the riffs sound discordant and dissonant, even reminding me of Deathspell Omega.

The drumming, like the rest of the music, switches with the sections: bursts of speed, spasticity, and a slow style are common. Everything from blast beats to the few-and-far-between drum notes of doom. I think, though I’m not sure, that the drummer uses cymbals more often than the usual percussion-based musician. Whether that’s a good or bad thing is up to you; I happen to enjoy the cymbals.

Sloth Herder have a wide range of sounds, and I’m sure if more people knew about them they’d have a much bigger fanbase. Tell the people you know about this band and hit them up on Facebook with a “Like”."

Source: No Clean Singing - bit.ly/16WPf6s


SLOTH HERDER IS:

Nick
Josh
Luke
Sean


CONTACT SLOTH HERDER: abandonpopsensibility@gmail.com