Barricade are from Copenhagen and play heavy, sludgy, stoner metal. Every aspect of this, their second full-length, is meaty and muscular, and while it’s performed with no small amount of skill and aplomb it’s also a likely contender for the most adequate release I’ve heard all year. Seriously: if I were to plot out a graph charting every record by every band I’d heard playing this kind of stuff, ‘Waker’ would sit dead centre, with the course they’re pursuing illustrating a perfect mid-point in terms of sound, style, ability and ambition. This, frankly, makes it a bit of a drag, and the next thing I do after putting a full stop to this last sentence will be to get it gone from the depths of my fancy new MP3 player.
