We are but a handful of days away from France’s Crackhouse re-issuing their self-titled debut EP via Argonauta Records. The 2-song effort will be unleashed on April 7th and to prepare you for what’s coming, I’m here to discuss Crackhouse a bit more in detail. So, what do you know about Crackhouse..and by that I mean the band, not the notorius place people go to beam up. Do you know that they are a three man band consisting of members Simon Morlec, Jibus Carton and Guillaume Vaillant? Or that they specialize in creating some lethally damaging, dense sludge riddled with doom overtones and abundant aggression? But there is more, much, much more as the guys meld dense Fuzz/Desert/Stoner Rock portions into their batch of intoxicating heaviness.

With these two tracks the trio cook up a dizzying delivery of deep rhythms embedded in this threatening aural upheaval. Resonating riffs shudder through the air around the listener as jarring drums pound and batter you senseless. Both songs, “Swamp Widows” and “Serpent Suuns“, are wide-ranging in content. Both are lengthy explorations into a sedimentary mire of hypnotic hardness. The former unfolds with a trippy intro that soon crumbles away as the chaos is unleashed. A body blow of mile-wide riffs hit you head-on as the angsty, somewhat hardcore type vocals’ gravelly presence is announced. With Southern Doom vibes reverberating all around, the paces of the tune are then alternated somewhat..at times uptempo and more animated while other times finds them throttled down to a slow-oozing crawl.

The latter song takes on a much more uptempo energy after its initial feedback-ringing introduction. Sure, it too is a heavy handed foray but it is definitely more akin to a caustic, post-hardcore style of music. This is the much more ultra-aggressive side of Crackhouse showing their wares in such a way that it will sear your ears from the inside out when you undergo the experience. Things do gradually settle down a bit as the guys take us into a much headier direction with some hypnotic repetitions of the song’s signature riff. Soon, a flurry of activity hits us from all sides like a beehive of damaging hammering and it hurts so good.

Once again, Argonauta Records will re-issue the self-titled debut EP from Crackhouse on April 7th but you can stream it here and now today. But take heed for this is extreme music, it is dangerous and corrosive in this thickly agitated state. It’s a metallic, hard rock blast that provides its own euphoric rush and will leave you geeking for more. Thankfully you can feed that need to fix with the repeat feature on the embedded stream here.

– Pat ‘Riot’ Whitaker