If ever there was a CD cover that encapsulated the sounds within, its Cough's full length debut; black embossed visage of upside down crosses, pot leaves and pentagrams indicating an unholy marriage of stoner/sludge/doom and black metal.

Review:

With nods to EyeHateGod, Iron Monkey, Thou, Highgate, Negative Reaction and such, Richmond's Cough deliver six long tracks of feedback filled, screeching, sludgy metal filled with some dark lyrics delivered with harsh, pained screams.

Fans of the above mentioned band have probably already heard the band's My Kingdom EP, from which "288 Days of Sin" is culled, along with five new tracks, and those fans will probably acknowledge Cough as one of sludge metal's rising, caustic stars and rightly so. Vocalist Davis Cisco has a tortured shriek littered with a few clean groans here and there while the Sanford Parker (Minsk, Rwake, Nachtmystium, Yakuza, etc) production delivers distorted, sickly, oozing riffs that rumble and slough with a low grumble and sneering menace.

The six tracks are each, scab picking, paranoid displays of death knell hacks and open wound seepage with Cisco's occasional groans being the only real issue I have (i.e. "Killing Fields", "288 Days of Sin", "Shallow Grave") as I prefer the more grating screams that fit the music as the likes of "Hole in the Infinite", "Northern Plague" and painful crawl of closer "Lyssavirus", that suck you into a blackened, bluesy, sludgy abyss.

This isn't playful, munchies and giggles stoner sludge, but a coked out, pick at your skin, teeth fall out, rotten gum and puss filled sores styled sludge that belongs in the gutters of hell.

Erik Thomas