WEEDEATER (Sixteen Tons) CD
One of the trademarks about Doom is it's minimalistic concept, and Wilmington's WEEDEATER are living and breathing Doom out of every pore with the new 2002 album "Sixteen Tons". Not much riffs, but the ones they are playing are belonging to the heaviest ones. The tubes of all amps are glowing, and the warm and crunchy sound slowly comes out of the speakers. Sometimes it's hard to believe, that this are only three guys. The sound is massive as hell and somehow groovy but never faster than mid-tempo, comparable to the mighty Saint Vitus or later Sleep. Like some other US heavy bands today, the've drenched it with Blues and due to Dixie's (ex-Buzzov-en) awesome sick vocals, the songs got a taste of Sludge in it. Like a buzzsaw, he cuts through the songs. But in opposite to other sludge bands, WEEDEATER are focused on remarkable songs with more groove.
The album contains ten songs, and there's definitly no filler on it. With the above mentioned "Woe's Me" and "Kira May", the band has placed two moody acoustic songs within all the Doom-laden riffs of "Sixteen Tons". "Time Served" is one of the heaviest songs on it, based on a pulverizing hypnotic riff. But as I've said before, there is more to discover on this album and WEEDEATER aren't that kind of lame Doom band. Behind every riff is enough punch to knock out a lot of today's overrated sabbatish bands. The powerful and transparent production was handled by Billy Anderson, who's build up a very good reputation for his past works with Sleep, SourVein, Bottom, Melvins and so on. Together with the tasteful cover-artwork, and all included lyrics this album belongs to the outstanding ones of the year 2002 and I give you the advice to get it as soon as you can. You won't be disappointed! You can order it from the Berserker Records homepage, where you can get actual infos about WEEDEATER or vist Crucial Blast Records.
(KK)