Urzah haven’t been around long, but they have been round the block a few times, chalking a swathe of post-sludge inspired gigs on their way to releasing their debut album The Scorching Gaze. They peddle a type of stoner sludge that is as eccentric as the Bristol music scene they hail from. Inspirations range far and wide, from Mastodon to Neurosis past Russian Circles and back again, Urzah really do cover the entire gamut of the metal genre.
Album opener ‘I, Empyrean’ starts up at a ferocious speed, there’s no wonder they released it as a single. The track is like a smorgasbord of Urzah’s sound, a little sprinkling of metalcore, a dash of stoner metal leads all rounded off with a healthy helping of pounding sludgey drums and side serving of post-metal ethereal cleans. The vocals sore, the drums slam, and the guitars grind their way through four minutes of intensely performed emotional music.
This vein is carried on throughout the album, it seems that Urzah’s greatest strength lies in their ability to weave a myriad of influences into a coherent behemoth, this may come from the bands approach to writing, where they have said in interview that, “we don’t really have main writers in the band. We bring ideas to the table, mess around with them, and see what happens. It really works for us, and when it clicks and forms into an actual track.” When you have so many obviously well-informed heads working together it creates a formidable beast, in fact you wouldn’t be wrong in saying this album sounds like it’s come from a band that have been working at their art for a much longer period than is reality.
The album is rounded out with the dual tracks, ‘Thera I and II’ each doing their part to capture the rich collection of different sounds that Urzah have in their bag of holding. Like the titular island being consumed by a volcanic eruption the songs blend seamlessly together to create tracks that are both crushing and graceful in equal parts. It’s a fitting way to end such a well balanced record.
The songs never give the listener a minute to rest, as they twist and turn through their ethereal cosmic shatterings, from crushingly heavy riffs, to heavenly angelic interludes, with lyrics that evoke the works of HP Lovecraft, gigantic in both scale and scope. Each song is like a self-contained journey, the band notes that Cormac McCarthy’s border trilogy is an influence on their lyrical content, the great American writer being brought to mind as each song twists it’s own path, swirling and meandering riffs complement delicately chosen additional strings and vocals to produce a audible tapestry that is both challenging and rewarding in equal parts. The only real question is, can they follow up such a sterling debut record? It’s highly likely Urzah are going to become a mainstay in (at least) the UK Sludge scene for years to come, and if this is what they have done after just four short years, then they have every right to claim their place.