Hell- Hell I (2009)

Holy fuck. I would love to say I slept on this band, but I really didn't. I downloaded a copy of this record sometime in 2010 and it just didn't grab me. As I said in the Gilead Media Fest review post, it might have been due to the extremely poor quality vinyl rip I had at the time (a much, much better rip is linked below) or maybe I just didn't give it a fair shake. Either way, now I see the light. The ugly, ugly light. Sludge isn't exactly a genre for the faint of heart or the causal music listener, but Hell are really on another level. I don't usually key in on vocals in metal music, it's a riff driven genre so that tends to be what I latch on to, but Hell I boasts some of the most torturous, inhuman vocals I've ever heard. Black metal dudes who think they're the bee's knees need to listen to this and have their egos stepped on a bit. But like I said, metal is riff driven music, so how 'bout them gits? Well, they're fucking huge. Imagine Thou at their most pummeling, like that riff in "Fucking Chained to the Bottom of the Ocean," but ALL OF THE TIME and you'll get the idea. Can't get enough of this record, listen to to goddamnit.

Get it here.

Unfortunately, this is currently out of print and not available digitally other than the above vinyl rip.