Album Reviews : No Anchor – Real Pain Supernova

Everyone enjoys a good bassline, or two, or a whole album full of nothing but basslines and furious drumming. Bass players behold, next time someone makes a “bassists aren’t real musicians” joke, whip out a copy of Brisbane trio No Anchor’s Real Pain Supernova, hit them in the face with it, and blasted it out of your speakers at full volume. No Anchor have decided that normal six-string guitars are for pussies and have set out to make some of the dirtiest sounding metal I have heard in a long time, using only their natural talent, wit, a pedalboard dedicated to distortion, two bass guitars and a manic drummer . I believe the bass players take turns yelling into the microphone, screaming lyrics about rabid wolves and dead ponies. They also take turns dragging the listener through a brutal muddy gauntlet of sludge and doom leaden basslines, underneath a pummeling beat assault from the drummer. No Anchor take no prisoners, and they sure as hell take no shit.

No Anchor have some quieter moments on songs like “The End” and “The Perils of Small Town Living”, but this is not the ‘nice’ kind of quieter moment, no, this is the suspenseful lull kind of quiet, where the whole song is going to explode at any moment, and when those songs explode, they exploded into a fast past sludge fury. Think Eyehategod meets Big Black. Layers of messy feedback ring through every track, especially on the sludge epic “Gatton Bohemia”, a 17 minute track of feedback, sludge, doom and drone, which is responsible for about a third of the album’s length. The album’s closer, “Key Cutter” ends with the bass guitars and tortured vocals fading out and being replaced by a female choir chanting “No more walls/no more doors”, ending the  hour long powerhouse of sludge and anger on a slightly calmer note.

If you like Eyehategod and Iron Monkey, then you should be downloading this album off the band’s bandcamp right now. Go on.  On occasion the drumming sounds a bit off, but this record isn’t about being perfect, it’s about being loud, angry and noisy as all hell. Get their album and go see them when they visit your home town, and don’t forget to wear earplugs. Always.  8/10

Band: No Anchor
Album: Real Pain Supernova
Year: 2011
Genre: Sludge/Doom/Noise
Origin: Brisbane, Australia
Label: Independent
Website: http://noanchor.bandcamp.com/

Tracklist:
The End
Wolves Bite and Disappear
Dead Pony
Gatton Bohemia
Shut My Mouth
The Perils of Small Town Living
Come Again
Key Cutter