Release Date: September 15th 2023. Record Label: Mahnmal Records. Formats: DD/Vinyl
Ancient Greed - Tracklisting
1.Sarnath 05:47
2.Titan Age 06:49
3.Wayfarer 06:40
4.Illusionist 03:49
5.Ancient Greed 06:27
6.Harmless Fool 03:51
7.Sonic Portal 10:09
Review:
Ancient Greed is the debut album from Sludge/Doom/Stoner Metallers Piece who play aggressive and progressive sounding music that will appeal to fans of High On Fire and early era Mastodon. What allows Piece to standout from the other bands of the scene is their great use of Hardcore Punk that comes mostly through the fast-paced aggressive guitar tone and the delivery of the vocals. The vocals are mostly from the Sludge/Stoner Metal scene but there’s an almost Hardcore quality to them.
The album also benefits from outlandish Psychedelic and Fuzzed up guitars. The music is dominantly aggressive with that eerie High On Fire tone appearing on the excellent batch of opening songs of Sarnath, Titan Age and Wayfarer which sees the band touch upon the free-roaming world of Caveman Doom specialists CONAN. The instrumental work has an almost violent and hypnotic primal quality throughout with Piece playing a wicked style of Thrash Metal and Groove Metal on the more classic leaning parts of the album mostly within Titan Age and Wayfarer.
There’s an almost Pitch Blackened Sludge mentality appearing within the lyrics of the album, the vocals only hammers that sentiment home. As you can easily understand what’s being sung even when the vocals change into a more unconventional style where the harsh growls become part of the norm.
Piece do showcase a more wilder style of Progressive Sludge/Stoner Metal on certain stages of the album where trippy feedback loops and guitar reverb shows a different creative side to the band that I admired greatly on this release. The songwriting moves up a notch on the later stages of the album on tracks such as Ancient Greed, Harmless Fool and the standout final track Sonic Portal.
Ancient Greed is a superbly constructed release that has a beginning, middle and end that’s bursting with intelligence and a willingness to adapt to different climates of Doom, Sludge and Stoner Metal that allows the band not only to pay homage to their musical heroes but also to make an exciting name and reputation for themselves in today’s vibrant underground scene.
Piece have delivered an intense and electrifying debut album that will have you listening to Ancient Greed for days on end.
Excellent and Highly Recommended.
Words by Steve Howe
Ancient Greed is available to buy now on DD via BandCamp and via Mahnmal Records
Links
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