Anyone familiar with Slung From A Tree will have experienced a live band that literally obliterate and pulverize gig-goers with their dense, down tuned and smoke-soaked ferocity. Like sucking on exhaust fumes, their music enters you soul and suffocates the senses with its hallucinogenic, mind-altering diatribe. Not for the faint hearted!
So, the big question is can Slung From A Tree carry that intensity and psychedelic grit into the studio? Well, the answer is fuck yeah! Seven tracks of crushing, down tempo fury comes rolling out of the speakers, with all the dirty distorted riffs and gravel torn screams that you'd normally find loitering around the Kasbah stage, in Dolans !
Blazed And Confused tears the album open with a hurtling hook that’s smothered in some filthy vocals, that scour and grate off those deep, molasses-drenched riffs and explosive drums. Even as the tempo changes, and heads into overdrive, there’s still that visceral stench of sweat, groove and rhythm to the track. That’s quickly followed by Astral Gold, which is swimming in a sea in 70’s swagger, with those spiraling lead solos sitting heavy above a wall of stoner savagery.
Low Frequency Disturbance does exactly what it says on the tin. Low-tuned to the depths of hell, the track crawls and drags itself through punishing riffs and bone breaking percussions. It’s grimy and fuzzy and absolutely slays when the tempo swings 360 degrees! Noise Pollution is chock full of reverb and trippy interludes, that get eaten up by more of those ferocious vocals and those meandering groove fueled guitars.
Dim Of Wit and Untitled roll together and bring the funk and the reggae to the table as it blends genres and styles and devours them in a sea of Irish potency. There’s even a Pearl Jam & Pink Floyd-tinged finale gracing the latter end of the tracks, which, to be fair shows that Slung From A Tree are far more than just spit and sawdust stoners.
The album closes with the title track for the album, Voyage Into Cosmos, and for me, they have kept the best for last. Right here is where Slung From A Tree kick off the shackles and just go for it, improvising and jamming the shit out of it. The music just takes you somewhere else, far from this cursed earth and deep into the cosmos. Spaced out on a trip like no other, the groove and the melody suspends you in nothingness for a time… that is until the speakers get a shot of adrenaline and the body comes hurtling back to earth in a cacophony of noise, sludge and fury. What a trip!
Slung From A Tree have been hovering around the live scene for a while now, making a name for themselves, and deservedly so. It was the ultimate acid test to try replicate that sound in the studio, but there was no reason to panic, the boys have nailed it.