Local sludge quintet Godhunter finally unveils a proper physical-CD release for their debut five-track album, which became available via the band's Bandcamp site earlier this year. Recorded at Arcane Digital Recording in Chandler and released by Tucson extreme-music label Acid Reflux, Wolves wields a medulla oblongata-wrenching wallop and obvious political (anarcho-libertarian) lyrics.
In opening cut "(Stop Being) Sheep," lead screamer Charlie Touseull offers clear-cut directions to the Starbucks-windows-wrecking crowd: "Don't just bitch / Smash, burn, fight / Recipe: / Bottle, gas, rag, ignite." It's an oddly kinetic memo to generate against a backdrop of lumbering-dinosaurs-trapped-in-molasses doom-metal riffs. But Godhunter delivers it with enough conviction and authority that I don't wish to argue with anything these guys say, even if I don't agree with much of it.
The band gets a nifty boost from local singer Sean Raines (We Killed the Union), who provides additional melodic vocals on two tracks, including the harrowing, heavier-than-a-wooly-mammoth's-hairy-balls "Red State/Black Crusade." Godhunter has already opened for a shit-ton of top stoner-doom-crust bands coming through town—The Sword, Black Tusk, Crowbar. Although they're playing a style of music arguably better suited for the South than the Southwest, Godhunter deserves some serious street cred for creating perhaps the best sludge album to ever ooze out of Tucson.
