Samowa - Smoking The Matchlock Bong

Samowa - Smoking The Matchlock Bong

Self released - 2019

Stoner, doom

Rated: ****

Followers of the doomed hasheeshian, gather round for an epic ritual courtesy of Sleep and Sabbath worshippers Samowa, on their debut album Smoking The Matchlock Bong. Hailing from Germany, the trio deliver huge, blown out stoner doom riffs in an unending wave of distortion and nod across four tracks all passing the ten minute mark.  Immediately familiar is the lysergic bounce of the cleaner riffs and the Cisneros-esque vocal lilt, calling to mind classic Sleep while putting a middle eastern twist on the eerie grooves. Those mellower passages never fail to eventually shift into crushing walls of distortion and thundering low end, given ample room to melt speakers in long instrumental passages that range from plodding to nearly thrash-like in tempo. Standout and longest track “Blackened Haze” dredges up a particularly vicious storm of fuzz, made all the more lethal by darkly doomed overtones and chants of “selling my soul”. The sheer length of the four tracks is daunting and the production rough, but plays perfectly into what Samowa are all about – wearing their weedian influences on their sleeves while infusing the hypnotic, earthmoving grooves with a personality all their own. A well-accomplished and powerful debut, Smoking The Matchlock Bong reeks with the dank smell of promise for future experimentation and expansion on the band’s already impressive sound.

(Written by Kyle / Shastabeast)

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