Opium Lord
Vore

As is usually the case when beginning a new year there will be some leftover 2019 albums to write about, like this one called Vore by Opium Lord. The second album of the British band and as Vore in Swedish translates to would I could write many wordplays that will not work in English. But I did ask; wouldn’t it be great if a band called Opium Lord had done something a bit less predictable than this album, an album that also looks pretty uninteresting. As they didn’t, I have to conclude that this one will lower the average rating of this year’s reviews considerably.

They think of themselves as noise rock or downturned surf rock but are probably most often described as doom or sludge metal – I think sludge is a fitting way to pin them down. The vocals are growly and raspy, the whole thing is slow like made when under the influence of opium. Timewise the playing time is sensible with just over forty minutes of playing time but as is often the case in the genre the slow and agonising way towards the end makes it seem a whole lot longer than that.

Vore is a rather varied album for a sludge, doom, or noise album and that has to be seen as a positive aspect. There are things happening through the album but when trying to focus on it, I think it seems as very little happens. Probably a consequence of the lack of atmosphere, it is hard to make sludge that is good and it can also be a genre that is hard to like and I don’t think Opium Lord contributes anything to change that. Still, I wouldn’t be surprised if there are genre fans who enjoys this album as it seems like whatever album you find there will at least be some fans so try it through the player if you enjoy the sludge genre.

While there may be some fans for an album like this, the general recommendation will still be to avoid it as it fails to impress, and it fails to stand apart from most other bland sludge I have listened to over the years I have reviewed music. I have to add a slight reservation though, as I generally likes more melodic music I have a difficult time to really warm up to many bands in this genre and therefore fans of said genre should not take everything I write as written in stone while the fans of more melodic stuff probably can take me at my word.

In the end I think that Vore doesn’t really bring us anything really exciting or fresh, it is just another album in the sludge/doom/noise genre and as far as I am concerned there are many albums that bests this one in that genre. Had I not selected this one for review I wouldn’t have gotten past the first track as I instantly found the music uninteresting but as I was to review it I had to suffer through it quite a few times to write down my thoughts about it and as you can read they aren’t very flattering.

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