irony of faith. who would have thought that a band with a name such as bongripper could land on an x'ed up blog like mine? me at the very least. but this blog was never about the consumption of drugs or the complete denial of it. it's about the music. that is what counts to me. and the music on this slab of wax is the shit! i heard of bongripper before, because they have a split together with my favourite british band conan. i didn't buy the split yet because i thought instrumental doom wasn't my cup of tea.
how wrong i was. as i am warming up with instrumental prog/avantgarde/metal through bands like toundra or red sparowes, it was the right time for me to check out some serious doom/sludge instrumental metal. i was browsing through the burning world records home-page, looking for a different release i will soon write about, and stumbled across this re-press of 'hate ashbury', the band's 2008 release. it looked pretty good and so i went to the tube, to see if i would like the music as well.
what can i say, this record is as close to perfection as it gets. the songs have no titles and flow into each other seamlessly, so it's like listening to one coherent piece. the album has some relentlessly good hooks and the downtuned guitars pummeling through your belly like a sledge hammer. man, i really like this record. bongripper played this year's roadburn festival in the netherlands. for this occasion great barrier records, which is the band's very own label i believe, pressed a 'roadburn blue' edition of 250 copies. burning world has some left. great barrier records. 2008/2015.
