Terex Titan

The Tempest EP

Written by: PP on 03/02/2014 20:04:47

Terex Titan are a sludge metal band from Aalborg, Denmark, who also incorporate a great deal of groove influence into their expression on their new eight-track release "The Tempest". The big players come to mind straight away - 16 and High On Fire among them - but you'll perhaps find their sound closer aligned to the doomy sludgeness of bands like Abraham. You know the drill: aggressively roared vocals, some extremely dirtily distorted guitars flowing forward like waves (see "Terex Tempest" for an example"), and an overall misanthropic vibe in their soundscape throughout the record that's difficult the become friends with.

It's a muscular sound that's sludge with a capital S, and herein lies its primary problem: their sound is totally anonymous, and rather monotonous across the eight tracks on the record. The slow tempo, the unvaried roars, the lack of quality riffs all ensure you leave the album behind with little impression even after frequent active listening sessions to build your opinion on. The root cause is simple, so let me take a wild guess at how this record came to be: the quartet decided to get together because they all like sludge metal, you know, because it's heavy and manly and stuff, and therefore the band should of course fall within those basic parameters as well. However, where all of the aforementioned bands -- not to even mention the likes of Kylesa and Baroness -- have all figured out how to integrate variety and reasonably catchy songwriting into their sludgy expression, Terex Titan just sound heavy and muscular, without either of those two key factors present in their sound. It's basically the sludge version of the frowned upon Danish Metal syndrome, which for a long period resulted in dozens of bands sounding exactly the same simply because their music had no characteristic aspects to set it apart from their contemporaries.

That is the problem with Terex Titan and "The Tempest" in a nutshell. While very distinctly sludge, and arguably including plenty of groove riffs with hints of promise, as an overall product it is weak compared to the relevant names in sludge. It's simply put, a boring record that requires much work songwriting-wise before it'll be a contender.

5

Download: Terex Tempest
For the fans of: 16, Abraham, High On Fire
Listen: Facebook

Release date 29.11.2013
5FeetUnder Records

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