Weedeater: Jason...The Dragon

Jason...The Dragon is my first encounter with the sludge metal trio Weedeater, where the guitars drone, the vocals rasp and the beats hammer their slow, but insistent way through all bar two of the songs. This is almost no nonsense, no compromise stuff all the way from a band who like to hit and hit hard, again and again and again and again. I say almost because mixed in between the slow, mean sludge are a couple of finger picking country odes in the shape of "Pain And Opium" and "Whiskey Creek", which while fun, only slow the album down and don't really inspire repeat listens. Add to that "March Of The Bipolar Bear" (you've gotta love that title) which is a not very interesting one minute drum solo and the other seven songs have a lot of work to do to keep you coming back for more.

In truth it is a burden that is just a little too tough for the rest of the album to cope with, especially when opening track "The Great Unfurling" is a spooky, spoken word intro. "Hammerhandle gets things under way proper and the huge blows of guitar are convincingly backed by some fine, snail's pace drumming and an almost death metal style growling, gargling vocal. The tempo is raised for the equally convincing "Mancoon", which brings the sludge into stoner and also has the best vocal on the whole album. The problem is that by the time that "Turkey Warlock" kicks in, you already sound like you are tuning in to a well rehearsed formula, where each of the non-throwaway songs wail into feedback laden life, before slowly igniting into the full blown song. It isn't a bad blueprint to follow, but considering that the first four songs on this album, minus the intro all, use this theme, then things do get bogged down before the sludge is even traversed. I don't think that the repetition of this aspect of Jason... would be so obvious if it wasn't for the fact that the only tracks that really break the mould are the aforementioned meanders into country and the (alleged) drum solo.

By no stretch of the imagination is Jason...The Dragon a bad album, but it certainly lacks for inspiration and variation.

Track Listing
1.The Great Unfurling
2.Hammerhandle
3.Mancoon
4.Turkey Warlock
5.Jason…The Dragon
6.Palms And Opium
7.Long Gone
8.March Of The Bipolar Bear
9.Homecoming
10.Whiskey Creek

Added: May 28th 2011
Reviewer: Steven Reid
Score:
Related Link: Weedeater MySpace
Hits: 2022
Language: english

[ Printer Friendly Page ]
[ Send to a Friend ]