Seven Sisters of Sleep – Opium Morals | Review

Mar 22 • International News, Releases, Reviews, The Slumbering Ent • 2078 Views • No Comments on Seven Sisters of Sleep – Opium Morals | Review

Today we have Mohammad Kabeer reviewing the new album from Seven Sisters of Sleep titled Opium Morals, released via A389 Records.

Tracklist:
01. Ghost Plains
02. Moths
03. The Flock
04. Grindstone
05. Sunday Mass Grave
06. Orphans
07. Reaper Christ
08. White Braid
09. Recitation Fire
10. Part 2

I had   first  heard of  Seven sisters of Sleep  two  years ago, back in 2011, when it was praised highly by Jason Campbell aka JGCsound an internet reviewer who specialises  in Grind, Hardcore and Sludge. Unfortunately   I didn’t really   agree with his views and  thought of the band as a very dull Eyehategod clone, I was surprised then that the  band now was getting a lot of buzz  and  many  people were actually anticipating this album. To be honest  I had mixed feelings about this, I was  worried that this might  turn out to be  abysmal  and a tedious listen  but I was hopeful as well, maybe the buzz was true. Thankfully it was… oh yes it was!!

 

Start streaming the entire album while you read out the review 🙂

 

Seven Sisters of Sleep are a five piece from California.  The kind of music  they  play  can be described as  a very  harsh  mix of  hardcore/sludge ,with the extremely distorted ,very dirty,  very beefy  sounding guitars that  use a lot of gain and  have a lot of  low end  on them that  just trap  you in a  suffocating  wall of sound .  It literally gives you no room to breath , you are either being hit  by speeding bursts of molten lava  or are slowly beaten to death by  a massive  rock  which  breaks every  bone in your  body. The vocals  add to the atmosphere a lot,  switching  from unholy  monstrous  growls  to torturous  screams  to more traditional  hardcore vocals. Now although the band is undeniably brutal , they do balance that  with their simple yet  sophisticated songwriting and every  song  even though has the same main characteristics, it is quite different from the other and maintains  its own identity, this is exemplified in Grindstone  which adds  some crust punk to the mix, Reaper Christ  which  sees the band  experiment  with their sound using some Death Metal  and a slight  touch  of  stoner towards the end  and Witch Braid  which has a certain part where the band  uses  double bass drums   over  traditional heavy/doom metal riffing.  But what intrigued  me most about this band  are their transitions which seem very  organic . The band blends both the parts to their song and   the two genres seamlessly ,  knowing exactly  when   and what to play, not once sounding mechanical or rehearsed, almost  like  a jam band.  It seems that they don’t   talk much about what to play and what would come next in the jam room, they just play.

Now.. I know a lot of what have said seems rather sadistic, but honestly I found the experience quite exciting.  Seven Sisters of Sleep  have come a long way from where they first began  and it shows  in this album. They definitely deserve all the buzz they are getting and I wouldn’t mind creating some of it for them.

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