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ALBUM REVIEW
- Power Pellut - Power Pellut
- I’m Better Than Everyone Records
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- Where label-mates Black Skies bring
the charm and nostalgia of hard rock to the sludge sound, Shreveport LA’s Power
Pellut are a far more angry, fetid beast, churning, nasty, primal, sprawling and all set
to turn your mind into an uncomfortable, ugly mush. The spirit of Jesus Lizard and Unsane
has infected their dirty southern grind, with sledgehammer heavy doom sensibilities
lending their chugging, decomposing approach the perfect gloomy outlook.
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- You don’t have to be a
THC-drenched swamp-monster to appreciate the art here (although hell, it does help); riffs
such as the glorious behemoth at the beginning of “If
Only I Could Reach My Utility Belt” plug right into the primeval metal synapses,
just like “Sleeping Village”, or even “In The Shadow of the Horns”. And
although your ears will be brutally damaged by the churning, simplistic movements, and
repetitive, rumbling guitar work, there’s tons of evolution, tricksiness and play
here, from the careening, dangerous, pacy break on “Corky’s
Revenge”, with its outbursts of shocking violence, to the howling, mired-down
progressions of the aforementioned “Utility
Belt”, and the cresting, self-destructive, roving, dark madness of “Neato Bandito”.
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- Although Power Pellut are keen to
point out that they have risen above their jam band origins – and indeed they have,
spectacularly – there’s still something rough, unpredictable, in tune and
exciting about them that reflects this early improvisational stage. Perhaps it’s the
manner in which they’re unafraid to deconstruct their already difficult sound,
layering it with dissonance and allowing it, at times, to sit shuddering in its own pool
of feedback. Or perhaps it’s the imperious confidence with which they pull off bassy,
rumbling, booming tracks such as “Rabbit
Hole”; there’s never the feeling that the band have ‘over-thought’
anything – it’s vicious and messy, but it’s also organic.
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- In all, this is a cleverly put
together release, with a fitting production keeping the primal howls and roaring, oozing
guitars raw, whilst the rolling, battering drum accompaniment is given more than enough
clarity to anchor all those elephantine riffs. For sludge fans I would say this is a must,
but there’s also a wider appeal; if you want to lose yourself in a primeval soup of
riffs penned and executed the way the devil meant them to be, “Power Pellut” is definitely for you.
- 76/100
- Ellen Simpson
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- www.myspace.com/lonnietreyscott
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