Including Gabriel and Ivan (bass, drums respectively) of Argentinian stoner doom hybrid MEPHISTOFELES, SAHARA is, again, a trio, and…yet again…plays stoner doom. Seriously, things are so incestuous that a 2017 split paired the two. The sliver of hope here, is that the latter is the brainchild of founding guitarist/vocalist Martin Ludi, who must’ve heard something he liked, and drafted the rhythm section to signal his return after SAHARA’s 2019 “involuntary” disbandment.
I’m going to go ahead and just say that, while Regain Records may be trying to “keep things cult” with this Limited Edition run of 150 cassettes, the cover art alone is laughable, some sad, emo-looking horned and fanged skull the likes of which I’d have even scoffed at in the mid-‘80s of my youth. It genuinely looks pathetic, so, maybe, for doom, a pass.
Clocking in at a bit over 15 minutes, SAHARA had best get in, do its business, then leave, a pile of bodies behind them. Instead, what we get with ‘Hell On Earth’ is 3rd-tier dirty club rock ala BAD WIZARD, the band that’s on first that you suffer through to get to who you really came to see. Musically slapped together, with a solo as annoying as it is boring. I’m not sure what’s being offered up on ‘Altar Of Sacrifice’, but if I was the deity this utter trash was laid before, I’d slaughter my worshippers and recruit elsewhere, too embarrassed to show my face at the next Occult Gods union meeting/bacchanal.
‘Gallows Noose’ wants so hard to have a BLACK SABBATH-styled stomp, but fails as miserably as everything about The Curse has thus far, and if you thought Martin’s voice was shit before, just wait until the instrumental title track closes things out, where we’re doomed to suffer through SAHARA in all its unadulterated pointlessness, without even Nasal Ned to provide humor.
I know now why the skull is depressed. I’d be damn near suicidal if I had to spend my life on the cover of such a waste of plastic, tape, and time.
Review By: Lord Randall
SAHARA
The Curse [EP]
Regain Records
0 / 6