Desert Storm – Death Rattle

 

 

Desert Storm – Death Rattle
APF Records – 2023
Metal, Stoner, Sludge, Prog
Rated: ****

We’ve been mentioning Desert Storm ever since Forked Tongues and even going back to their debut and we reckon we mentioned most of their releases. We might even have mentioned most of everything that has something to do with the Cole brothers who are of course an integral part of the Desert Storm heaviness. You know, what them two did with Wall and The Grand Mal. But today we are jotting down some words about Death Rattle, their seventh album in fifteen years of Desert Storm. Fifteen years and they’ve taken their progressive sludge all over the world, and all over the place. Moving into more stoner territories for some tracks and more metal with black touches on others. Death Rattle, as the ominous title already alludes to, has overtones of the heavier and darker territories and only lighter touches and songs as the album starts. Master On None, uses some doom touches and stoner riffing, soloing and trucking to get its message across, with both gritty as well as melodic vocals. Second track Cheyne Stoking might be the most progressive ditty on the album, with the cleanest vocals and airiest compositions. There’s in fact a whole lot of space in between it all, giving it all something solemn and mysterious. With the following Bad Trip all the cogwheels fall into place and relentlessly grind the sludge metal riffs into the most concentrated mothersludging heaviness you can get. And then to think it starts out so melodic, with that guitar slowly creeping its gritty back alley essence into your own personal Cul de Sac. The raw guttural vocals quickly dispensing any hope of some good, indeed, Bad Trip. An ode to a friend they lost some ten years ago. After which they keep upping the amount of darkness they use to color the Death Rattle tracks. Druids Heath, still holding a sludgy prog touch, turns black and bleak quickly, only offering some form of respite of something delicate guitar work in the middle circle part, which still remains somewhat somber and with the smoked dark brown vocals, it never fully lets you recover from all the pressure the albums has been building. And that’s what Death Rattle in the end turns out to be, this majestic pressure cooker of riffs and furious drum work, that just builds and builds, only ever so often offering escape for a tiny bit of air, until that final ending, outro kind of track New Dawn. Which after so much tension and gravity, might actually give you goosebumps and will surely a wonderous feeling of elation, as if you have escaped the darkness and have found a way to carry on…

(Written by JK)

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