Labels: Vendetta
Review by: Joe Callaghan
The band name sums up everything I could put into this review. Freight is big and heavy. If a freight vehicle was to pass you, it would likely to be louder than other vehicles, and often slower. And Black is Black. Realistically the only colour you can include in a band name if you’re pedalling heavy jams. Band names are important for setting the tone before you even hear a jot of the recordings, and obviously they couldn’t pull off a name like Lucky Charm & the Sunshine Bunch and still be heavy. It wouldn’t work. It would be silly, and they’d be ridiculed and shunned. That’s your Band Name lesson for today. Breathe it in. So, Black Freighter are slow, heavy, and the colour black is mentioned, which also means slow and heavy now. They are from Antarctica, so will fall under the Snow Metal umbrella which is clearly bolstering its popularity by the day. This record sounds cold too, as if it was recorded in an industrial freezer. It just has that eerie rasp to it, though I probably wouldn’t think that if I didn’t know they were from Antarctica. Their location gives it an instant brisk imagery, y’know? I want to describe this with the verb “ripping’, but I think that is only valid for fast records. Whatever. It still rips, tears and leave the remnants of the ripping on the floor, mere metres away from a waste paper basket. Unrelenting ripping. It’s brooding and moody, like it has just been grounded and isn’t allowed to go to the fun fair tonight which is in town for one night only. It’s slamming bedroom doors and kicking the skirting board straight off the wall at unsociable hours, instigating noise complaints to the council from angry neighbours. Each lug blasting chug is like a capsule for an instant headache, all whilst your Aspirin is getting flushed down the bog against your will. Each pummel of the snare drum only worsens the symptoms, to an extent where you wouldn’t mind fishing out a painkiller soaked in diluted Toilet Duck if it would soothe your pulsating skull. Just don’t mention My War Side B in its presence. It sounds fuck all like that, and it will put a bullet in your lungs just for suggesting it. Show some respect.