Grim Earth

Man, did Grim Earth really pull a fast one with the vaguely psychedelic clean tone that starts of this demo. Judging from the cover art I was expecting something raw and grimy and that threw me for a loop for a second or two. Fret not, because this is indeed quite badly produced and reeks of beer-splattered jam room walls. Grim Earth settle somewhere between a swampy and desert-laden sound - there's a lot of bayou grime here, but also hints of early Kyuss. Another thing they settle between is boring and straight up bad.

Grim Earth's dirty brand of stoner sludge is imbued with a beefy hardcore crunch. The more hardcore-inflected parts kind of sound like if early Mammoth Grinder got too drunk to play anywhere near their usual standard. There's lots of super bouncy riffs, and honestly it's kind of generic. The super raw sound is the only thing stopping these parts from sounding like every other lame stoner band in the world. The bluesy jamming sections sound like something I'd play for 5 minutes on my guitar after coming home drunk before promptly passing out. They're super unnecessary in such a short demo, too. I'm thankful the cleaner vocals don't come up very often, because, uh, what the fuck is going on? They sound like if some alt rock guy went to try out for a band like Clutch or Corrosion of Conformity but swilled half a bottle of Jack Daniel's beforehand. I think he might have been going for the whiskey soaked croons that made Kyuss so great, but come on dude, what are you doing?The more standard hardcore-ish barks are fine but very unremarkable.

I've made it a mission to hear all of the 2019 sludge demos listed on the Metal Archives, and I really don't know what's wrong with me. There have been a few decent ones, but man - a genre that is this easy to play sure does attract a lot of low-effort fare. I feel like a heaping dose of filthy sludge can be what the oft-boring stoner metal genre needs to keep it from devolving in another boring session of jamming on the same four Black Sabbath riffs a dozen bands have already ripped off before you. But I dunno, this just feels like someone recorded a half-drunken jam session and called it a demo.