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From Invisible Oranges

First Cough, then Thou, then Samothrace - it's a great time for American
sludge/doom. Why this Lawrence, KS outfit named itself for a Greek island
is unclear, as it sounds distinctly American. Big slabs of downtuned dirt
abut melodies that recall Earth's leanings towards Americana. In fact,
this record might satisfy those disappointed by Earth's recent refusal to
drop the hammer. It has the soul - the jangle, the blues - but it also has
the weight, constantly shifting tectonic plates so that slow never becomes
static. These tracks are 10 minutes plus, and they feel much shorter. On
only its debut, this band has mastered the momentum that makes good doom
much more than just slow tempos. (Add Renata Castagna to the list of
worthy extreme metal axewomen.) Producer du jour Sanford Parker turns in a
reliably thick, naturalistic recording.

David D'Andrea refracts the floral/angelic theme of Tom Denney's previous
artwork for Samothrace (which is extremely similar to his cover for
Sourvein's Ghetto Angel) into a lovely gold/black package. The LP version
comes in double gatefold vinyl with a poster (gold vinyl limited to 150
copies); mailorder copies include a patch and sticker. This is yet another
killer release this year for 20 Buck Spin, who have a spiffy new
label/distro website.


From the Hartford Courant (Hartford, CT)

Lawrence, Kan., band Samothrace introduces itself by unleashing a
slow-motion apocalypse on its debut. Heavy down-tuned riffs, rough and raw
vocals and some pretty, melodic guitar textures combine to create a
monolithic din that reveals new layers of sound with each repeated listen.
It all adds up to one pretty impressive debut.

The quintet plays doom metal, but adds extra parts, like soaring guitar
lines played on top of lumbering riffs. Each song is a mini-epic where the
riffs lay the foundation for the guitar parts played on top of them.
Vocalist Bryan L. Spinks' raw-throated howls sound like another
instrument, giving more power to the band's crushing sound.

Opener "La Llorona" starts with a quiet, melodic guitar part before giving
way to a heavy riff and Spinks' tortured vocals. As the song winds through
its 11-minute running time, guitar lines rise out of the muck, giving the
music extra muscle and making the songs more dynamic and emotionally
powerful. Even more impressive is that Samothrace shows its depth mostly
through its music -- the vocals are pretty sparse.

It all adds up to what sounds like a bright future for a band in the bleak
world of doom metal.


From Cerebral Metalhead

You may cry while listening to Life's Trade. Your tears will be real,
honest tears, borne of the knowledge that someone, somewhere, is so
acquainted with hopelessness that he can capture it in sound, carve it in
stone so transparently with weeping guitars and funeral procession drums
and deep screams that creep up the vertebrae like they were rungs on a
ladder. That this heart-rending expression of pain comes from a Kansan
doom metal band named after an ancient Greek island matters not. Life's
Trade is as purely emotional an album as you will find in any genre, and
if you can't at least perceive that, there is no hope for your soul.

Despair wears many guises in heavy metal, whether it's the doleful sorrow
of English gothic doom, or the nihilistic hatred of Norwegian black metal.
Samothrace looks closer to home for inspiration, straight to the dusty
well of southern blues. But there is none of Eyehategod's ugly,
whisky-soaked lurching on Life's Trade. "Cacophony" is anything but -- its
thick, tolling chords sound like the mournful hell-howling of Robert
Johnson, corroded by distortion pedals and vocal nodules but beautiful all
the same. Guitarists Bryan Spinks and Renata Castagna jam their molten
riffs like a metallicized Allman Brothers; solos glide delicately over the
end-vamps of "La Llorona" and "Cacophony," raw and virtuosic as vintage J.
Mascis.

Lyrics are short and telegraphic, vehicles for Spinks' throaty scours.
"Life's Trade. Souls sold. Weight's felt. Gods break." Strained vowels
stretch out over the long expanses between guitar crashes, electric winds
howling over the plains. Producer Sanford Parker (Nachtmystium, Buried At
Sea, Indian) proves once again that he can squeeze nuance out of even the
most overpowering sounds. Doom metal rarely feels this personal.


From Coke Machine Glow

One listens to Samothrace and imagines the city of Lawrence, Kansas
rendered post-apocalyptic: immutable dusky snow scattering like static on
a broken television, fenceposts stuck jagged out of the dirt. I suppose
there's the same spread of shopping malls and sports bars and community
centers as most other urban centers, but, like I said, Samothrace seems to
erase this, the city then a festering wound stuck up out of the brittle,
flat farmland with this band and this music something like leeches at once
living on that split flesh while suturing the mistake shut.

I'm getting carried away. But this is melodramatic music, with a post-rock
sense of theater and doom metal's swollen ambience. Besides, locale can be
important to a young band (why else would we listen to We Are
Scientists?), and the music of Samothrace truly seems wrenched from that
flat vista. The predominant unifying factor, after all, of the four pieces
on Life's Trade is a strangely Midwestern affection for melody. On
"Cacophony" the band evokes decrepit, failed crop-shares with shuddering,
windswept gloom, which is all to be expected on a doom metal affair—but
inserts within this barren place warm guitar licks like bonfires against
the cold and lonely synth lines like baying wolves. Those lupine synths
feel, strangely, familiar. Home-y. It's a moving sentiment, edging into
outright sentimentality, to create a sense of home within this murky
music, but the gamble pays off. This is imminently listenable, immediately
likeable music to hate yourself and everything else to.

There's a second component to Life's Trade worth mentioning, aside from
the general excellence of the compositions and instrumentation. I'm
talking about the production. The general MO on such efforts is "sound
loud," but Samothrace sounds worn. The interlocutor between the almost
subconsciously rendered melodies and the ice age chill of their setting is
a sloppy Crazy Horse sense of stomp and fuzz, a production aesthetic with
an earned sense of forgiveness, if that makes sense. It may not, but it
will: The end of "Awkward Hearts," for example, after eight minutes of
baleful (and unchanging) riff-work, ruptures into half-time and finally a
dust-worn shitstorm of a guitar solo, nothing psychedelic or particularly
tuneful but instead worn snare stabs and loping, twirling guitar
melancholia.

Woven through the curious curlicues of melody, this whiskey-piss
production gives Life's Trade its workmanlike sense of distinction. Here's
a press quote nobody wants to read: "Finally, the doom metal Kings of
Leon," but it's true—assuming that we mean the old Kings of Leon, the
weird and genuinely inebriated young men that sounded spawned fully formed
from the fever dreams of Rolling Stone magazine, before the band turned
into the scarf-wearer's Bon Jovi. Point, I suppose, being: Samothrace have
released an assured debut, but its refinement is a dangerous proposition.
Here's hoping they cut dirtier and drier still on further work; the
results could be outright tornadic.


From Live 4 Metal

Holy shit, where the fuck did this come from? Samothrace (an island in the
Aegean Sea, by the way), a trio from Lawrence, Kansas, are playing some of
the best stoner-influenced doom I've heard since "III" by Acid King.
Absolutely out of nowhere, the band's debut full-length, "Life's Trade"
from 20 Buck Spin Records, arrives in my lap, and my jaw has just dropped
at how insanely catchy this album is with blues driven, sludge-induced
riff after riff blowing my mind.
Sleep and Acid King are definitely the templates here, as Samothrace are
instant masters at the catchy riff played at a slow pace with plenty of
strummed, mild guitar melody in place to introduce those riffs. When fully
in place, the backbone riffs of "Life's Trade" just crush everything in
their path, and obviously set the pace and tone of this four-song opus.
"Life's Trade" draws heavily from influences running the gamut from the
aforementioned Acid King and huge amounts of Sleep, early High On Fire
before the pace picked up, Bongzilla, and even a few doses of Earth,
particularly with some of the strummed guitars. Complimenting the heavy
riffs are deep growls and howls that are a bit in the background, a
crushing percussion, a deep bass, and a nice melancholy touch that shies
away from European influences and, instead, embraces an American
blues-based sound.
Needless to say, I'm highly impressed by "Life's Trade", as too often in
this genre many bands come up short in the riff writing department, the
genre's obvious cornerstone. Not so with Samothrace, who may just inherit
the throne left vacant by Sleep. That's a tall order for a band with
merely four songs recorded, but the future looks bright indeed for
Samothrace. Buy or die.