Review: Holy Mount - We Fell From The Sky

Imagine if you will what the bastard offspring of The Black Angels and Sleep would sound like. Imagine no more, because we have Holy Mount. Hailing from Toronto these guys produce a gloriously heavy concoction of fuzz, distortion and sledgehammer riffs. 'We Fell From The Sky' first appeared as a free download on bandcamp four years ago, albeit it demo form, and now it is being given the full vinyl treatment courtesy of White Dwarf Records of Berlin....and if ever a record deserves it, it's this.

Over the course of seven tracks (expanded since the early demo version) Holy Mount subject the listener to an almost constant wall of bass, the sort of bass that reverberates around your ribcage and rattles your brain. The riffs are just as heavy, making up in power what they lack in tempo, giving it all a doom vibe. However, this is not a doom album...yes, it has the slow, crushing bass lines but it is so much more than that. Earlier I mentioned The Black Angels, not as a throwaway reference but because 'We Fell From The Sky' shares the same psych sensibilities as, say 'Passover'; the same fuzzy riffs, muted vocals and structure, but a lot, lot heavier. I'm sure some will christen this 'psychedelic doom' or somesuch, but, adopting a purely phenomenological standpoint, we should just celebrate it for what it is, without recourse to labels or pigeonholes....a bloody fantastic album!

The vinyl will be released by White Dwarf on 28th August, but pre-orders are up now. A version is available for download on the bandcamp page.