Release Date: November 21st 2025. Record Label: Self Released: Formats: DD/Vinyl
Bud Ends And Glass Bottoms - Tracklisting
1.Flesh And Wires
2.Dope Palace
3.Morphine
4.Next Station: Devastation
5.Pepeliaris
6.Drunk On A Camel
7.Via Dolorosa
Review
Bud Ends And Glass Bottoms is the second full length album from Doom/Sludge/Stoner Metallers A Gram Trip who tap into the similar downbeat and down-tuned madness perfected by the likes WEEDEATER and BONGZILLA with the main emphasis on dirge ridden grooves with a ton of WEEDIAN filth being added to the mix. The vocals are harsh throughout but quite easy to understand with them occasionally going over into DEATH based growls from time to time.
The record fully sells its gloomy and depressing STONER vision from the very start with opening track Flesh And Wires being quite demonic and utterly downbeat at times. However, there’s a sense of seedy fun within the musical passages that remains cautiously grounded by its Sludge Metal surroundings. The levels of SABBATHIAN fuzz are heard throughout with the lyrics being quite nihilistic as well. A Gram Trip play mostly slow-to-mid extended instrumental jams but they do sometimes play a faster style of music when the time calls for this.
Second track Dope Palace is influenced by ELECTRIC WIZARD and SLEEP if they ever went on Blackened Sludge Metal makeover with the album taking a more sinister EXTREME style with it’s down-tuned melodies and harsh landscapes moving towards a thrilling progressive climax. The delicate levels of FUZZ transforms into surreal areas of meditative DOOM and transcending Psych Metal within the later stages of the track which makes this one of the standout tracks on the album. A Gram Trip shows great movements of originality within their music that allows the record to be quite different from where it first started from.
Third track Morphine sees A Gram Trip experiment with trippy Psychedelic and Spaced Out passages for the first part before venturing back into their normal style of decaying filthy style of Doom, Sludge and Stoner Metal where they find a great counterbalance of holding everything together. The vocals are superbly delivered with the harsh momentum being grounded and highly effective for A Gram Trip to fully sell their bleak creative vision. There are waves of DISTORTION which can be uncompromising to experience at first but this works superbly well with A Gram Trip demonstrating their style of WEEDIAN METAL to great effect.
Fourth track Next Station: Devastation is a more straightforward and fast-paced affair with A Gram Trip focusing on delivering a classic style of Doom/Stoner Metal. There is an outburst of Blackened Doom Metal appearing with aggressive vocals that allows A Gram Trip to play some of the heaviest, filthiest and fastest grooves on the album.
Fifth track Pepeliaris has a classic NOLA energy building up from the very start with a kick-ass modern Psych Metal drive that allows A Gram Trip to develop their own great style of Stoner Metal with some intense SONIC delivery being played throughout this track. You can even detect small levels of SPACED OUT DOOM forming with the band opting for this song to be purely an instrumental track. This is my favourite track on the whole album as A Gram Trip explore different areas of the Psychedelic Metal spectrum whilst giving this a violent metallic edge to lose yourself in.
The final two tracks of Drunk On Came and Via Dolorosa sees A Gram Trip tap into the surreal areas of Stoner Metal once more with downbeat and intense lyrics having a violent effect when matched against their down-tuned grooves and distorted riffs that rule the creative landscape. There are still great examples of SONIC DISTORTION and WEEDIAN MANIPULATION that A Gram Trip provides within the fourteen minutes time frame of these two great tracks.
Bud Ends And Glass Bottoms is a downbeat and violent experience with A Gram Trip brilliantly selling their nightmarish Stoner Metal vision from start to finish that left me wholly satisfied for a long time to come.
Words by Steve Howe
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