Band – Iron Gavel/Black Tar Prophet

Album – Split

Country of Origin – USA

Genre – Noise/Sludge

Release Date – September 16th, 2016

Label – Broken Limbs Recordings

Author – Credible

Iron Gavel side – Iron Gavel is coming out with a split LP with Black Tar Prophet, so I thought I would review them one at a time for ya. The band Iron Gavel is listed as a “heavy, destructive noise” type of band.  I will tell you now, they are very heavy and very destructive with their noise. There is heavy distortion in their guitars and bass that makes you feel every note that they play through the reverb of their sound.  There are heavy distorted tremolo picking styles in the music that are great to hear as well.  The drums are in the background crashing, like that of a building coming down.  These beats drive the destructive feeling of their music along with their deep tones and overall style of playing.  I will say though that I feel that there was too much repetition in the music.  The songs had points where it would feel like a bit of a loop to me.  I would have like to see some more differentiation in the music instead of the loop and some varied tempo to help keep my interest.  That being said, I did like the overall sound of the band and thought they were good, but the constant looping was not my particular cup of tea so to speak.

Rating:  2.5/5

Black Tar Prophet side – For an instrumental duo with a bass and a drum, they are pretty good.  The drum drives most of the music here. There is some real showing off on the part of the drummer that I really dig in the music.  There are tempo changes that he initiates with some good kick drum and follows with some solid cymbal crashes.  There are some good changes in his skills and techniques that kept me interested in the music when I felt like it was about to become repetitious.  The bass lines in the music are low and resonate with your soul.  It gives them almost a doom feeling that makes you start to see demons coming for you.  I really dug their sound and how they tried to keep changing the beats, sounds, and tempo to make it interesting to listen to.

Rating:  3/5