ninehertz

Sometimes you get a good feeling for a band after a couple of minutes listening, as I did with Ziggurat. Describing themselves as crushing doom will draw me in always, but there's plenty more going on, to unravel through the five songs on what appears to be their debut EP.

It begins with big booming doom riffs with stoner sensibilities - as I say, good feelings abound - a touch of Torche perhaps, but I'm too busy being blown back to really pay attention to the finer details. The relatively clean vocals provide a nice contrast from within the cyclone of riff-wall noise. It is entitled '94, perhaps a nod to the year of Sky Valley, Superunknown, Troublegum and When the Kite String Pops - probably not, but a formative time for our music regardless.

There it is again, on the following Babylon, that enormous, feel good dirty doom sound with vocals pouring through, I'm thinking fondly back to Cavity here, a reminder of that unique and colourful Florida interpretation of doom once more. Ziggurat are from Detroit I should mention at this point, this is just where my mind is wandering while taking them in. There's some Layne Stayley drawl creeping into the vocals on Silent Eulogy, a little of the denser end grunge (we all love Fourth of July right?) generally before it gets heavier altogether towards its end as it howls to a close.

The last couple of tracks go darker, hoarser, a stand and deliver riff hammer of the Conan school on the first of them, but they lose something of their charm in the stripped down architecture.

Ziggurat have obviously got an armoury full of subtly different approaches to their grunge tinged doom, and that helps them stand out - you want this to succeed, and by and large, without being perfect, it does. An EP to delve into and discover its hidden elements, and a band to keep an eye on for sure.