Grime

Man, of course there's a sludge band named Grime. It only makes sense. As their band name suggests, this is very grimy. A thick haze of fuzzy unwashed distortion continuously washes over everything. This is complimented by demented rasps. While the band's sound is not completely original, they do what they do very well. It's still straight sludge. Eyehategod and Crowbar are the godfathers of sludge that bands tend to gravitate towards the most. Grime are definitely in the Eyehategod camp.

These guys have a great guitar tone. It has the usual filth and gargantuan weight, but with a surprising amount of treble. The riffs are straight sludge, and once again, sound rather Eyehategod-y. They are so huge that the bass is often rather impossible to hear in many incidents. Since we're on the subject of the band, the vocals here sounds like Mike Williams, perhaps a bit blackened. They are supremely raspy, but still retain a bit of their hardcore bite. They work incredibly well with the riffs, complimenting their disgusting nature. Scummy vocals like these are really the only thing that would work in this situation.

The songwriting is adequate. Not the strongest, but certainly not non existent or completely ignored. Like a lot of sludge, this has hardcore songwriting played at doom paces with layers of dingy grime (sorry, I really couldn't help myself) permeating over everything. Without the guitar tone and intensity of the vocals, they wouldn't stand up so well. However, this isn't that much about the songwriting - it's about a filthy sound and the riffs. The songwriting is somewhat secondary, but in this case it already works so well that this can be overlooked. This all sounds very similar, and this is rather long for an EP, so it probably could have had somewhere between five and ten minutes off its 34 minute running time. However, this is still not a huge problem.

A sludge band named Grime was pretty much inevitable. Grime is such an important factor to the sludge sound that it only makes sense that a band would eventually name themselves after it. And this band does indeed sound grimy. Lying under layers of filth, this certainly is hard hitting and unrelentingly decrepit. Although not entirely original and definitely taking ques from Eyehategod, this Italian group are very good at what they do. While their main influence is made clear, they don't come off like a full on Eyehategod cover band or anything, and certainly take on a bit of their own personality. While the songwriting could use a little enhancing and a bit of time could be shaved off the running length, these are minor problems. Grime are successful at their brand of hate-laced sludge.