Labels: Black Axis – Withered Hand
Review by: Alex Deller
For most, announcing your arrival on the scene with a double CD would be an act of arrogance akin to striding into a job interview wearing a crown and cape, scoffingly rapping your prospective employers across the knuckles with a jewel-encrusted sceptre. Just as well, then, that London’s Pombagira are actually pretty good, combining the slothful, drawn-out gait of early Corrupted with the lysergic rasp and stumble of Dopethrone-era Electric Wizard, somehow managing to be both relatively easy-going and heavy as all fuck in the process. Opener “Castdown Earthbound” sets the mood for what’s to follow in exemplary fashion, driven by a repetitious, downtuned Jus Oborn groove before fizzling downward into a moping, Om-ish mantra and back again into the good ol’ riffs n’ roars, a pattern “” or at least a variation thereupon “” that’s largely followed over the album’s two-disc duration, give or take the occasional hushed “Llenandose De Gusanos” piano motif or creepy child-voiced sample.