Cult of Occult - Cult of Occult ...

Cult of Occult are a 4-piece doom/sludge band from France who have released this very intensely bleak 32 minute EP. The band is on the hardcore side of the sludge/doom metal scale especially with the vocals that have a real hardcore edge. This is a raw EP that is lacking polish but I figure that is what they wanted anyway; this EP attacks, shreds and pummel's as the band rip through 5 titles of filthy, dirty sludge. On first listen, I thought of the band Highgate which most of you might not have heard of so lets use Grief and Iron Monkey meets Church of Misery as reference points instead.

There is not much to say about the styles you hear on this self-titled EP. It is raw, noisy, feed-backing, and full of fuzzy guitar riffs but despite their name, I can't see where the occult connection comes in with any of these songs. To my ears they sound more influenced by the weed-smoking concepts of bands like Bongzilla than any satanic driven band. There isn't much variation throughout the 32 minutes but that doesn't matter at all. These tracks are concise doses of punishing primitive sludge but very down-tempo compared with most other sludge acts. The songs are not for those with a weak nervous system and go easy with the volume when you first put this on, this EP is extremely nasty at loud volume levels. As musicians, Cult of Occult seems to be very good players but go for the primitive, ritualistic, rough around the edges approach on purpose. There mission is to be as nasty as possible and to hurt eardrums and on that level, this EP works. However if you are after something new, or challenging musically, you won't find it here but that suits me fine.

There is nothing on any of these songs to rave about it. If you have heard the other bands mentioned in this review so far you will already know what to expect with Cult of Occult but when tracks are delivered with this much fury and passion, the lack of originality doesn't mean a thing in the long run. There is no real stand-out track but I do tend to dig the opening tune 'Blurry and Muzzy' a little bit more than the others ...... It is 8 minutes of face-melting riffage. I can't say much more about this EP except it is high-quality bleak sludge-metal of the blackened variety, pure, dirty and played with honesty and passion. The production could have been better and they are not original and that is the only two gripes I have with this EP but they are only very small complaints as this EP is a start to finish crusty riff-fest........8/10.


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