Vast, Loathsome

Drouth is a band I've known about for the better part of a decade at this point. I first heard this band's work on the Doomed & Stoned in Portland II compilation. I had not followed up on them at the time, but did love the titular song, Vast, Loathsome, instantly. I was super into stoner metal back then, stuff like Monolord and Electric Wizard, so of course Drouth's sludgy, melancholic music was right up my alley. Over time, I grew out of stoner music, and gradually stopped listening to those compilations; thus, my consumption of Vast, Loathsome also ceased. But some years later, right after I switched from Pandora to Spotify, I was graced again with another taste of this song by chance. Vast, Loathsome is one of the first songs I bought because of an online ad, so I'm glad to commence the second leg of this series by reviewing the whole single.

Drouth could be described as black/death metal, especially based on their full-length albums, but this first single of theirs definitely leans doomier, making good use of down-tempo rhythms and sad vibes. Overall, I'd categorize this as a blackened sludge release, since track 1 and 3 intersperse quite blasty, intense sections with slower, dirgy parts. Furthermore, vocalist Matt Stikker employs a blackened approach with his harrowing howls as well as poetic/ritualistic lyrics, and the guitar tone is thinner than the average sludge band, (but no less impactful), allowing the fuzzy, prominent bass to thicken the mix. All together, the style of this single is executed very well for a debut, though half of the band members had already cut their teeth in the band Contempt, which explains the sludgy influence still present on Vast, Loathsome. That influence would wane over time, but it never fully went away, since many of their newer songs still feature slow, dirgy riffs.

The music on here is mostly downtempo, though track 3, Nine Circles by Starlight, is much faster than anything else, with blasts and 6/8 marches most of the time. All in all, it's full of intense fury and is considerably less melancholic than Vast, Loathsome and Orb Weaver, but it does slow down during and after the bridge for a bit, ending where it started with another blasting section. The titular track and Orb Weaver feature long clean guitar/bass passages, the latter is pretty much that the whole way through with some added atmospheric ambience to spice it up. Orb Weaver is less of a true song than the other two, acting as more of an interlude between track 1 and 3, working as a musical palette cleanser/respite from the onslaught. The titular track features many changes, with the aforementioned clean guitars, a slow and sludgy section, a marching section, and blackened blasts all within the first 3 minutes. The lead guitar is very good as well, and always complements the vibe the rhythms are going for, be it shredding over the blasts at 4:10 or tremolo picking over the sludgier parts at around 5:20. The ending section, to me, evokes some kind of demonic ritual, (I picture a bunch of devils dancing around with flames and such). That last part also reminds me of Demilich, sounding a lot like certain sections from Inherited Bowel Levitation and The Echo. Could Vast, Loathsome have been shorter? Potentially, but it doesn't feel its length, and it would feel wrong to remove any particular part.

Black metal is not my forte, but when it's added to genres I'm more familiar with, like speed metal, thrash, doom/sludge, etc., I'm super down for it. I was never skeptical of Drouth's blackened tag because they were introduced to me on a doom metal compilation, and I was surprised at how much I vibed with those blackened parts; they're so efficiently intermingled with stuff I already like. All in all, Vast, Loathsome is a great debut and even though they moved on from this sound a bit, I'm always happy to revisit this initial, enduring accomplishment of theirs.