Band: Sofy Major
Release: Idolize (Album)
Release Date: Out Now
No bullshit beginnings, ‘Idolize‘ kicks off hard with the staggered, jagged ‘Aucune Importance‘, the old-school Mastodon sounding track is more than enough to turn your ears to; the perfect mix of prog, noise and balls-out rock as the Red Fang-esque ‘Comment‘ mixes it up, brawling in with bass heavy chunk and relentless groove alike.
‘Steven The Slow‘ takes it back a notch, think Bongzilla, Church Of Misery, Weedeater and Neurosis at some sort of party with a free for all of marijuana and strong liquor – the defining sound of ‘stoner metal’, methinks. It’s heavy, but not how you’d expect.
Following on from the entirely atmospheric ‘UMPKK Pt.1‘ comes, well, ‘UMPKK Pt. 2‘, a piece that builds and drops continually, throwing the listener from eyes-shut chills into alertness within the walls of just less than four and a half minutes. Something that perpetually boggles me throughout the course of this record is that Sofy Major are a three-piece, yes a three-piece. ‘But how do they make everything sound so massive?’ I hear you say. Fuzz. A shit load of fuzz and the ability to write some rad as fuck slow, groove-driven metal.
‘Coffee Hammam‘ is almost uncomfortable to listen to as the listener has no idea where they’re going to be taken to, the kind of uncomfortable that could be depicted as the spontaneous adolescent erection, awkward but awesome. Just me? Okay, moving swiftly on into ‘Seb‘, a interlude type track that could easily be transferred into a nightmare, the sound of an echoing, frantic voice hammering over the down-paced rhythm section.
Closer ‘Power Of Their Voice‘ definitely doesn’t do what a lot of final tracks do and drop down into something acoustic or ‘heart-felt’, this track pounds out kilogram after kilogram of metal meat for the ear of the beast to feed upon, it may just be me but the mid-section is slightly reminiscent of the more recent Biffy Clyro.
If you like heavy, heavy rock, stoner metal, weed (optional), meat (optional, we’re sure many a vegetarian will enjoy this record too) and most importantly, groove-based fuzz then ‘Idolize‘ is the full-length for you this year.
8/10
Reviewer: Luke Davis
