LOINCLOTH Iron Balls Of Steel - 2012 US CD, super technical Metal ft. ex-CONFESSOR members
Format: CD Condition: New Year of Release: 2012 Cat. No.: LORD147 Label: Southern Lord
Heavy metal umlauts and ridiculous titles point to stock riffs and ever more grandiose tales of conquest and victory befitting the general stultification of traditional metal and its tropes. Thankfully, this is none of the above. North Carolinians Loincloth, featuring ex-Confessor members, play slimmed-down instrumental tech-metal that errs on the right side of groove and precision, filthily low bass underpinning the brutality.
While a good portion of the album is served out in miniature blocks of riffage, such as ‘Hoof-Hearted’ or the fantastically-titled ‘Underwear Bomb’, a dark sense of humour pervades enough as to render each worthwhile in context, while relatively longer-form pieces, like the jagged ‘Shark Dancer’ or feedback-encrusted album closer ‘Clostfroth’, allow their pared-down tech the freedom to breathe and ideas to kick and scream into various contortions, oftentimes to awesome effect.
Thoroughly original, and breathing life into the jaded old instrumental oeuvre, Loincloth’s first album in eight years was well worth the wait. Let’s not leave it so long next time, eh, lads?
Review by Mike McGrath-Bryan
TRACK LISTING:
Underwear Bomb Slow 6 Apocalypse Trepanning Hoof-Hearted Sactopus Angelbait Long Shadows The Poundry Sharkdancer Elkindrone The Moistener Theme Beyond Wolf Stealing Pictures Voden Clostfroth
