Канали

The cover of this CD has a photo of a little naked boy and a goat, though it’s not as Michael Jackson-esque as that probably makes it sound. And in the booklet, there’s a picture of Charles Manson. Who knows what it says about him, though? A Macedonian, that’s who. Because the whole booklet, just like Potop themselves, is totally Macedonian, dude.

Macedonian metal? Yeah, why not? Slovenian industrial would sound strange too, were it not for Laibach being one of the world’s most famous industrial bands. And once upon a time, Norwegian black metal probably seemed like an outlandish proposition, instead of the none-more-black pinnacle of musical extremity we know it as today. And let it not be forgotten that Alexander the Great was from Macedonia, which seems kind of heavy metal, no?

Channels is Potop’s debut CD release, as well as being the second release on new label Iron Pig Records, and it’s an MCD with five tracks totalling half an hour or thereabouts. The Iron Pig website compares their sound with power violence bands such as Drop Dead, Crossed Out and Man Is The Bastard, as well as doom bands like Burning Witch. I'm not qualified to judge the power violence aspect myself – hardcore is pretty much outside my field of expertise – but I can definitely discern metal elements in Potop, specifically the noise / doom crossover of Black Sun, the sludge metal of bands like Kylesa and Pelican, or arguably the noise rock of Zeni Geva.

There are no track titles I can give you – three tracks are untitled, and the others are, yes, in Macedonian, but two tracks here are taken from the split LP with US group Burmese, released by Macedonian label Fuck Yoga, one is from a forthcoming Fuck Yoga compilation LP, and two are previously unreleased. Track five barely exists at all – it’s a short but cacophonous 39 seconds of drums and screaming – but the other four tracks are all lengthy, slow and barbaric. No poncy keyboards or shit like that here, just downtuned, doomy riffs, bulldozer drumming, inarticulate anguished roaring vocals, all served up with a dirty great garnish of feedback. The second track is especially remorseless, clocking in at 11 minutes. There’s a couple of faster sections in this track, but apart from these, Potop eschew the speed of orthodox hardcore in favour of the crawling, crushing trudge tempo of sludge and doom. The third track is the pick of the bunch, with some great Candlemass-style riffing and a slightly less torpid pace. Slow or fast though, this is one seriously brutal piece of work. So, Macedonian metal – remember you heard about it here first, and prepare to get mashed up by Macedonians.

This review was originally written for Judas Kiss webzine:
www.judaskissmagazine.co.uk