Suffering Luna with The Astronaut King / Suffer The Storm
Split [12-inch; King of the Monsters]

On a split 12-inch in which both bands have ‘suffer’ in their names, well, it stands to reason there would be quite a bit of brutal bashing involved. But no one could have expected the spiritual sludge of Suffer The Storm’s “Squalor,” a 22-minute blood oath comprising several of my favorite things (though no raindrops on roses): doom metal, death, dismemberment, and Bukowski. I’m not sure how but STS might even have one-upped the thickness of Whitehorse on this one, squeezing all traces of light from the composition and wickedly stretching the twisted tension out. In a doom-saturated metal market Suffer The Storm represent the most tortured strains of the art form, crusted over by scabs and settled lava. Suffering Luna with Astronaut King don’t drop the ball as much as they fail to meet the standard of heaviness set by “Squalor.” But don’t worry, you won’t be bored. SL shared a split with Dystopia back in the day (which is HUGE) and tote a distinct, noise-influenced sound in their gig bags. You get the crunchy guitars (and even a few solos), doses of double-bass, and shouting you might expect from a Crowbar recording, but on top of all that chaos is a psychedelic alien pod that hovers long after the other elements have faded. It’s surprising to me that more bands don’t take a stab at this strategy, as it renders what might have been standard metal more of a mystical bent. Several color variants of the vinyl version of this split complete the package; have you ever enjoyed suffering quite so much?

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