Sometime after their 2004 split with noise-mongers Burmese on Crucial Blast, Ohio sludge-slingers Fistula parted ways with drummer Aaron Brittain and lay idle for a year or two. Discussions with -16-/Scumchrist drummer Jason Corley lead to his joining the group and recording this five-song EP in anticipation of their full-length album, due later this year.
The title track kicks off the down-tuned depravity with a Black Sabbath-like plodding through a handful of chords, but “Upside Down” speeds up the festivities with punk-crusted melodies before falling backwards into throbbing riffage inspired by Corley’s serving time with -16-. While “Six Hundred and Sixty-Six” has an old Electric Wizard cadence, “The Master” starts with nearly two minutes repeating the same chord progression then kicks in with a crusty, Cable-like intensity. In an odd twist, the final cut “Friend of Mine” is a straight-faced acoustic track that smacks of Alice in Chains’ Sap EP.
A departure from their past feedback-scorched transgressions, Fistula have updated their sound from callous, unforgiving bulges of doom to a more streamlined, focused fixation on making an indelible mark upon the American doom underground.
