POSEIDON

Prologue – Limited Vinyl // CD // DD

Ripple Music – Release Date:  JULY 21st, 2017

Reviewed by Aaron “Red Beard” Wall

Poseidon…crushing, destructive, monolithic. Juxtaposed with melodies of melancholy and the starkest and darkest of beauty. Poseidon…volume, monster thickness of tone. Rhythms with a pulse that can go from subtle to leveling pulverization. Emotional atmospheres of foggy desolation. Based out of East London these four blokes bring the smoke and the ash. Raza Khan-Drums // Matt Norris-Guitar // Matthew Bunkell-Bass/Vocals // Jaime Starke-Guitar hurl fire and smog. They bring a weight down on you that hits the soul. Prologue  is Poseidon’s Ripple Music debut. Ripple most definitely know what they are doing. The label is the leader of heavy in North America and expanding. Signings such as Poseidon and this concrete slab of a record will keep Ripple’s reputation held in extremely high regard.

Prologue begins with ‘The Beginning The End The Colony.’ Our journey starts with a slow build of epic proportions. Feedback and tension swirl around your brain. The thickness pushing and putting pressure on the mood. As the monolithic and devastating riff drops, the drums of thunder kick in heaviness and groove that suffocates, and simultaneously exhilarates. Slow, meaty, weighty, emotionally charged sludgy doom. Midway through, the flawless vocals come in as Poseidon proceed to drop the sledge. The band transitions into an atmospheric and dissonant short reprise. Complete with swirling and weaving leads. You are able to catch your breath…if only for a minute. Savor that breath, because the last four minutes of this jam, the band will crush your lungs, your mind, your heart, and your soul. All has gone black.

Mother Mary Son of Scorn follows. A poignant acoustic dirge that lets the sparks and ashes fall and settle, on the smoldering landscape of desperation. Beautiful and dark, lamented and empty. This song makes you feel. Feel deep.

Chainbreaker  breaks the chains. The beast is rising. Slogging across a swamp of mud and guts. Angry and agitated, the creature destroys the tethers of persecution, and is coming for the black tower. Tribal rhythmic drums mimicking the heartbeat, guitars raining molten lava. Waves of noise suffocate, as passionate and desperate vocals send shivers up the spine.

Closing track Omega opens with a biblical sermon on top of clean guitars with some reverb. The mood it sets is  immediate and intensely felt. Poseidon smash the psyche and the face until the final note.

On Prologue, Poseidon lay the wood. This record takes you on a dank and darkened  journey of diabolical sludge and doom. Neurosis noise, ethereal Yob vibes, Conan crushing tones. From the opening feedback, to the feedback at albums end, Prologue has everything. Heavier than one hundred heavy things. Emotional with weight and eerie underlying melodies throughout that are amazingly beautiful. Poseidon will be making waves, or should I say…Poseidon will be making tsunamis. We are all going under, and we are all going to be swept away.