Zoroaster: Matador (2010) Review

It turns out I'm a bit of a sucker for colorful (but still awesome) album art. No, it's not Baizley, it's Brian Mercer, who is successfully channeling both Baizley and Pushead.

Zoroaster is from Atlanta, the source of the sludge metal explosion. But their particular brand of sludge is very much stoner-sludge, even moreso than High on Fire. The band will often go into a droning pattern, sometimes with odd guitar leads overlaid, and the vocals are mostly a monotone half-whisper--often with echo effects. Yeah, this is stoner sludge.

The album starts off on "D.N.R.", which displays all of those characteristics and lets you know what the band is really about. It gets more upbeat on the next few, including the meandering beauty of "Odyssey" and the solo goodness of "Trident". But then it completely jumps the shark on "Firewater", a pointless noisy mess. It's followed by the endlessly boring drone of "Old World", and except for the much more lively "Black Hole" the album never fully recovers. Do not rescuscitate.



The Verdict: They are unique among the sludge explosion, but in my opinion it's not in a good way. Does this kind of stuff actually sound good to people when they're stoned? It has some good moments, but overall you're better off spending your money elsewhere. I give it 2 out of 5 stars.