Cattle Hammer celebrates 2026 with a new EP.
Collaborating with Road to Masochist Records, Wilkins, D (vocals/guitar, Fukpig, Make Them Die Slowly, ex-Mistress, ex-Anaal Nathrakh live), Cartwright, I (drums, ex-Yamakunt), Wyles, J (guitar), and Von Donovan, D (bass, ex-Kroh, ex-Mistress) bring us Dark Thoughts With Lights Out.
Gloomsower welcomes us with an ominous guitar, quickly joined by the other instruments, which develop a hellish heaviness that is as suffocating as it is haunting. Then it’s Wilkins‘ turn to enter the fray with his growls, adding a touch of aggressive angst to the thick soundscape. The progression is half apathetic, sometimes becoming a little more jerky while remaining in those massive and nauseating sludge tones that barely let a few harmonics through before the tortured flow joins a long feedback loop, then Rotting presents us with a vocal sample before unveiling his first riffs. Vocals are once again slow to reach us while the rhythm section flattens us to the ground with its macabre tones, but once they return, they further amplify the already omnipresent unease and the apocalyptic atmosphere that reigns in this suffocating simplicity haunted by the samples that return before the final, then Watchmen, Alone kicks off with noisy tones. We feel trapped by the sound, living with the cries and whispers before finally returning to heavy sounds that become almost soothing but which do not hesitate to settle on the vociferations to reveal their power and keep us on the ground while the vocalist gives everything he has in his guts to bellow his drunken sound before letting us access Body Puzzle. The Drone influences are very clearly perceptible in this disturbing mass of dirty and unhealthy sounds, then it’s back to Doom/Sludge that comes back with a vengeance to reach such a level of sonic decay between continuous oppression and mind-numbing heaviness, temporarily delivering us with a sample that acts as a pause, then resuming with the same intensity until the end, where we finally find truly soothing tones, but ones that still seem threatening.
I have rarely heard such a claustrophobic sound as Cattle Hammer does… If you thought you had heard everything there was to hear in terms of heaviness and musical filth, Dark Thoughts With Lights Out will grab you by the throat and make you understand that you are just a fucking innocent neophyte.
95/100
