Hailing from Germany and with their debut EP released in November, Sauros dropped us a message recently – fortunately for them during one of the rare times when I have a chance to listen to new music!
Dealing out some lovely doom metal, it’s no surprise to hear every note downtuned and crunchy through the six tracks on display. The vocals are nicely sludgy, but perfectly audible. It seems quite the angry album, too, given the tone of the songs.
The drums are worthy of a particular note. They’re absolutely belted, but not overused. Powerfully punctuating the overall crushing sense of darkness generated by the band as a whole while resisting the temptation to “over-fill”. Sometimes less is more, and in this case they’ve nailed it.
I particularly liked “The Bearability of Solitude” with its screamed intro, but overall the quality of Retreat is pretty steady throughout.
With the slower stuff, it’s easy to drop into an easy groove and let the sound become a bit stale. After all, if the listener’s head is nodding once or twice a second and they’re in the zone then it’s all good, right? Fortunately, Sauros haven’t fallen into this trap and each track is fresh. Hell, I’m not the biggest fan of doom metal, but I really enjoyed this EP.
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Retreat is out now
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