Fister are a relatively new sludge/doom group from St Louis, Missouri. About 2 months ago they released this, their second full length album.
The record starts off with some promise. The first track, when is finally kicks in, is quite good. Beefy riffs with overloads of gain, hostile distorted vocals, and a general slow heaviness meet the ear. It can get a little repetitive, but that's not terribly uncommon in the doomier end of the metal spectrum, so I'll give that trait a free pass for now. The second track start out in a similar vein, but unfortunately things take a rapid turn for the worse from there.
The second track quickly devolves into somber instrumental meandering. And then the third track is an instrumental, which again just sort of listlessly drifts along without really doing anything. The fourth track doesn't do much either, and then the fifth track is yet another instrumental. And that's the end of the album. After giving the listener about 8 minutes of unremarkable but solid doomy sludge, the entire album just sort of loses interest and wanders off.
I wish I had more to say about this album. There's really not much to talk about, though, because for the bulk of its mercifully scant 24 minutes, nothing happens.
Grade: D
Even at its best this is just okay, and the final 2/3 of its run time bored me to tears.
Yikes.
ReplyDeleteAt first I thought this was about Fistula, who are more of a sludge/grind band.