Superior stoner from Reading based mob
These are boom times to be a stoner rock fan. Everywhere you look, it seems, you will find a band full of blokes who fancy plugging their instruments in and playing great big, thick grooves over a pounding drumbeat and with the bass high in the mix.
Looking at Reading’s Morass Of Molasses it seems that they are going to fit that profile perfectly. The three piece have the look to indicate that they live in this world most comfortably. Even their name indicates something slow, sticky and thick.
And, when you stick the opening few seconds of “…..Fate” on, you are not disappointed at all. Initially, “Rotten Teeth” does all you would expect, and that’s no bad thing, but then, something happens that you are just not anticipating, that elevates this into something very special indeed. There is a dynamic here that you just don’t get in much of this stuff. There is quiet bits, loud bits and light and shade.
The anything-can-happen feel is carried over into the next track on this four song collection, “Ashtabula” which is a little faster and even adds a touch of swampy boogie into the mix, before the almost haunting vocals take it off into another direction entirely.
“Fear To Tread” thuds initially, then contents itself with being menacing for a bit, then shows all the interlopers how a sludge band should sound, while the closing “Bear River” begins like it’s the soundtrack for some horror film or other, adds a shitload of fuzz to its guitars and ends on a tidal wave of noise.
This is a quite superb EP. Stoner and sludge in a way that not many others are even attempting. If stoner went prog then it might just sound something like this. There is something a little strange at work here and it makes Morass Of Molasses very thrilling indeed.
Rating 9/10
