Can you get more beastly and monolithic than naming the opening track of your album “Whale Road” and having it swim along like the titular gargantuan for a eleven plus minutes??? New Jersey’s Clamfight had the nerve to do just that and it works like a fucking charm on their upcoming third album.
But who is Clamfight you ask?
Well, if Corrosion Of Conformity lived in the swamp or Baroness never matured or maybe Goes Cube was a little less frenetic and focused all that energy into the long game instead of quick bangers you might have an inkling of an idea of the glory that is a Clamfight recording.
Delving back into III, “Selkie” just yearns for your attention with a constant and consistent rumbling and these pained cries from Andy Martin (Who also provides that percussive rumble) with Joel Harris and Sean McKee delivering a sturdy riff foundation.
“Echoes in Stone” transmorgifies (Totally a word) into this raging beast of bluesy, fuzzed out riffs with these magnificent Martin drumstuffthings (Probably not a word) as Louis Koble’s bass instills an unspoken sense of togetherness until “Eynhallow” slows it all down ever so slightly before the inevitable conclusion.
Said conclusion comes in the form of “History of the Earls of Orkney” which has a bit of an old school Baroness feel to it (It’s weird to put “Baroness” and “old school” in the same sentence, right?) while it lurches on, climbing and climbing to a fiercely blistering end. But if you’re really impatient, just skip to the seven minute mark and thank me later.
The aptly titled III is five tracks and almost forty five minutes of epically beautiful sounds. It’ll be released through Argonauta Records on January 19th. Buy yours here or here now and check on over here for more on Clamfight.