Review Summary: The basest essence of sludge metal embodied in fifteen glorious minutes of filth and furor.
Zozobra never were the kind of sludge band to outstay their welcome. Indeed, 2008's
Bird of Prey was a rarity within the genre: a furious, swampy beast of an album that was fast, filthy, and above all, concise. However, with
Savage Masters this
Cave In side project have apparently decided that it was not enough, resulting in the most obscenely pissed off fifteen minutes of hardcore-infused sludge that you will ever have had the pleasure of subjecting your eardrums to. Yes, this album clocks in at slightly under fifteen minutes. This would be a problem in the hands of most other musicians, but what
Zozobra have crafted with their first album in five years is so utterly meticulous and unrelenting that it would be doing the band a disservice to put too much weight on the extreme brevity of
Savage Masters. Among a sea of highlights, one that is most worthy of mention is the absolutely delicious performance put forward by bassist and vocalist Caleb Scofield. His vocals, lying somewhere between a shout and a growl, fit perfectly atop the suffocating instrumental barrage beneath, occupying that glorious halfway point between the unbridled furor of hardcore and the thick, murky character of sludge metal. Also, like the best that both of the aforementioned genres have to offer, this album gives Scofield's bass work as prominent of a role as Adam McGrath's unrelenting guitar playing, with his crunching lines providing some of the record's most memorable moments. What really sets
Savage Masters over the top of the sludge pantheon, however, is yet another aspect carried over from
Bird of Prey: the absolutely glorious production. Laden with feedback and some of the most deliciously vile guitar and bass tones to spring from such a release, well, since the last time
Zozobra released an album, the entirety of this release is pure filth. This does not only apply in terms of production: the songwriting is filthy, the bass lines are filthy, the riffs are filthy, the drums are filthy, and the vocals are filthy: even the artwork, with its tan and black hues and its occult influence, screams of the unadulterated filth contained within
Savage Masters. Yes, one could complain about the unnecessarily brief time that this album begins and ends in, and it could certainly be argued that there is a limit to the benefits of tightening sound and trimming it of its excesses, and that
Zozobra are, at the very least, toeing this line. However, why should that matter when these fifteen minutes are so violent, meticulous, and unrelenting?
Savage Masters is an album that defines -
is - the very core and essence of sludge metal, and in the end, nothing else about it carries any weight.
