beehoover - Low Performer

beehoover - Low Performer

Self released - February 2020

Sludge, stoner

Rated: *****

Album number six from Germany's sludge veterans beehoover, "Low Performer" is a powerful and affecting experience conjured up by the two-piece bass and drum masterminds. The bludgeoning strength of their attack is made immediately apparent on opener "Goreplay" with thick, frenetic riffs and deft cymbal work building a constant sense of tension. The Buzzo-style vocals alternate between almost stately cleans and manic screams, making good on the music's promise of danger, helped by harsh tones that verge on industrial. The full impact of "Low Performer", however, is felt when the tense atmosphere is combined with the lyrics of cuts like "Weisenheimer Blues" and "Fisherman". Anguish and loss are palpable in "Weisenheimer Blues" as the line "hell is waiting without hope" is declared over the thrumming, haunting bass, but angry defiance and hope is let loose in the following yell "in the heart of this hell is paradise". "Fisherman" offers another gut punch in its pained tale of spitting in the grim reaper's face, with high and cavernous bass creating an eerie buildup toward the heartfelt story's climax:

"my last breath

save it carefully

into a plastic bag

and push it back

into my rotten body"

The lines are repeated as if, in uttering them again and again, by force of will alone the narrator can speak their second chance at life into a reality. This is just one instance of beehoover's mastery of affectingly heavy songcraft, both sonic and lyrical, in an album filled with sludge epics that manage to deliver intensely felt suffering and hope alongside irresistible groove and pummel. "Low Performer" is a beast of an album that pulls no punches, and is all the more rewarding for it.

(Written by Shastabeast)

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