By DJ Monk
Last year, 2018, marked a landmark one for sulphurous nuclear sludge duo, Tuskar, marking as it did the release of their EP, ‘The Tide, Beneath, The Wall’, which was described by my colleague Tim Bolitho-Jones as “20 minutes of nightmarish hell music, dragged from the deepest, darkest charnel pit and vomited unpleasantly into life… a snapshot of screaming, Lynchian madness and about as pleasant as crawling naked through a room full of used needles while dragging the corpse of a beloved family pet behind you”.
It was a release which the pair – vocalist/drummer Tyler Hodges and guitarist Tom Dimmock – regarded as marking a significant shift in their musical perspective, ushering in a sea change in scope and sound, which, over three chapters captured punishing progressive sludge and savage, sub-world vistas. It presented soundscapes shaped by moments of dark brooding doom and relentlessly riff-heavy and psychedelically charged movements, showcasing an unshakeable chemistry, which they have sought to emphasiize, some 12 months later, with this latest behemothic offering.
‘The Monolith Sessions’ lives up to its name, as it three slabs of Stonehenge slam banged into the middle of the Giant’s Causeway and then nailed into place with nails made from the Giza pyramids. It’s dank and sonorous, dense and dreary, yet strangely enervating, especially in the rich tonality of Dimmock’s deeply downtuned guitars, which clash and crash with the venom and veracity of a north Atlantic riptide seeking out an unsuspecting surfer.
As you would expect, ‘The Monolith Sessions’ is huge in its brutal, uncompromising soundscape. It asks for no mercy and takes no prisoners in return. It is unapologetic in the fiery fury which it unleashes, unrepentant in the bloodied trail it leaves in its wake and equally unforgiven for doing so. It is a true firestorm of an EP that deserves to be revelled in, letting the bloodshed it induces it induces wash over with a warm embrace that defies any attempt at cleansing.
- ‘The Monolith Sessions’ is out now. You can get your copy HERE.
- Tuskar play Sophie Fest at The Bread Shed in Manchester on Saturday 23 November and Crypt Of The Riff at Voodoo, Belfast, on Friday 13 December.
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