A short review for a very long album, this one. Long in terms of length (and title) rather than number of tracks, Spider Kitten’s Behold Mountain. Hail Sea. Venerate Sky. Bow Before Tree contains but three songs… and has a run-time in excess of 25 minutes.
This EP/album came about by accident. The band were pretty much just jamming some stuff in the lead-up to working on a new album, experimenting with new sounds… and decided they liked what they’d come up with.
Laced with samplings of Norse legend and based closely on researched Viking mythology, Behold Mountain… uses doom/sludge to weave these classic tales. It’s a very heavy album, with the typically down-tuned sludge sound mixed with doom overtones and a hint of the psychedelic. So, two of the (generally) slowest and heaviest genres wrapped around each other and something extra just to liven things up.
Now I confess that this kind of stuff really isn’t my thing, but having seen the success of many bands in the sludge genre I know there’s definitely an audience out there for it. Originality is what keeps music alive, and what Spider Kitten have to offer here is a neat twist on the existing doom/sludge scene. If you’re already into the heavier stuff, then this is worth checking out. You definitely get your money’s worth!
Release date is 27th October, 2014 and Spider Kitten are already working on the next “proper” album, due next year.
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