(Here’s Todd Manning’s review of the new reissue of a landmark 1997 split release by Noothgrush and Corrupted, coming in August via 20 Buck Spin.)

If Doom and Sludge are related, and surely they are, then Sludge is Doom’s younger brother, suffering from all sorts of complexes and probably killed their parents because they wouldn’t give him money for meth. 20 Buck Spin has taken it upon themselves to remind us of one of the seminal releases of this most toxic of genres with their reissue of 1997’s split record between Oakland’s Noothgrush and Japan’s idiosyncratic Corrupted.

Noothgrush kicks off the split with the punishing “Hatred for the Species”. Mid-paced, at least in relation to other Sludge acts, the sound here is not unlike EyeHateGod minus the Southern blues influence. What the listener is left with is a bleak and nihilistic condemnation of what it means to be human. If these guys saw the world through these eyes back in 1997, imagine how far humanity has come in twenty years to prove their judgment prophetic. Continue reading »