3 out of 5

Label: New Tongues

Produced by: Daniel Ruder

Heavy hitting but a bit confused, New Tongues debut has a fittingly self-reflexive title – We Are The Ones We Have Been Waiting For – suggesting that the trio summoned themselves into existence to plug a gap in their musical needs. And I can “hear” the gap-plugging: starting from the then-sound of Young Widows, New Tongues connect this back to the hardcore punk from which that band sprung, but balances that with a bit of QOTSA boogie, or revivalist Sabbath swagger (e.g. early Black Mountain), then rolls the pile in a fine dusting contrariness. This last bit is probably the most interesting, and emerges in a tendency towards dirge, which is contrary in the sense that where tracks might traditionally balloon outward, or sink into a riff, NT will stay on a beat and really drive into it. This may sound like a negative, but the way it’s effected can be really pummeling, just hammering on a sound until you build it louder and louder in your brain.

Elsewhere, it’s really a matter of the group skirting a built to close to soundalike territory, but then also, within their particular sludge metal range, trying to do it all, and thus winding up without much identity. So in willing themselves into existence, it wasn’t exactly plugging a discrete gap, as opposed to some talented musicians plucking bits they liked from their favorite bands and patching them together. From a distance, it works, but song-by-song it’s rather all over the place, with some moments of clarity where the trio goes after a sound that’s more definitively their own.