In the Company of Serpents, Merging in Light (self-released)
If I’m reading this press stuff right, this Denver band is a bass-less duo consisting of a drummer keeping time for vocalist/guitarist Grant Netzorg, who loves old Black Sabbath. This is the second EP from this project, featuring stuff that’s a lot like Crowbar (Netzorg’s voice is a Kirk Windstein dead-ringer) (and that’s a good thing, by the way) but with a more anything-goes attitude toward the riffing. After some Sunn(((O))) formalities pass, opening song “Breed Consume Die” becomes a mashup of overlaid ideas from Sabbath’s Master of Reality, one interesting trick being Netzorg’s answering chomp-chomp doom chords with Iommi-esque trilling. They’re beyond sludge-metal, really; it’s more like Boris after a thorough cleaning of their bong, meaning lots of bliss, a ton of fuzz, and some fascinating ideas. Not that I’ve been to a metal-fest in several years now, but I’m assuming that a White Stripes setup such as this would warrant a lot of Bic-lighting from the crowd (or do they just fire handguns in the air nowadays? I honestly have no idea). A — Eric W. Saeger