UK rockers Morass of Molasses have been locked on our radar and feeding primal needs ever since the first moment the band emerged from its founder’s previous impressive band Karn8 in 2013. Since then Bones The Beard with his soul grasping vocals and salacious baritone guitar lures, Phil The Mountain with his treacle thick grooves and rapacious riffs, and Chris The Beast whose rhythmic swings induce more physical earth tremors then fracking, have become one of the most potent and compelling, not to mention sonically tempestuous propositions in British stoner and heavy rock. After some seismic slabs of temptation posing as singles, the trio now unleash their debut EP, So Flows Our Fate. It is as epic as it is thunderous and further evidence that UK rock is not only ready to take on the world but poised to teach it some new and template shaping tricks.
Hailing from Reading, Morass of Molasses has earned a deserved and mighty reputation for a live presence which has seen them a constantly acclaimed and eagerly devoured provocation, especially across the south of England. Now is time for a national awakening and there is no doubt in their fan’s and indeed our minds that So Flows Our Fate is the incitement to do it, with the potential to ignite a much broader landscape simultaneously.
Rotten Teeth is the first infestation of ears and psyche, also the first single from the band igniting a horde of slavering appetites all on its own in 2013. Its opening air is immediately portentous but swiftly defused by the dirt clad seduction of grooves and equally inviting riffs. There is also a predatory nature to the offering which descends straight away on the senses as well as a delicious and unpredictable character which sees the track, out of the blue, slip into a seductive lure of restrained and hypnotic rhythms alongside a bordering on toxic caress of guitar. Bones’ vocals discover a mellower character to the rasping snarls which lit the track from the start, and the whole twist provides a mesmeric spark for the imagination, if also a deceitful wrong-footing as you just sense it is toying with the listener and luring them in before unleashing its tempest again which of course it does after more of the insidious romance. When the eruption does come with the caustically flavoursome and intensive chorus, another wave of pleasure washes emotions before the delicious cycle begins all over again.
The track is superb, one which has only gained in stature and quality since its first unveiling two years ago, and a trait matched in the following Ashtabula. It too is an earlier song from the band which just seems to get richer and more intoxicating over time and listens, something easy to expect the new songs on the EP to similarly do. The second song has an even richer and thicker blues lilt to its magnetic sound and citric grooves, as well as that fascinating unpredictable tenacity which again from a fiery and ferocious start toys with expectations and imagination, moments of eye of the storm calm and virulent sonic explorations colliding and uniting with more hellacious and ravenous almost overwhelming heavily boned rock ferocity.
In the first two songs alone a depth and diversity to the Morass of Molasses sound, which truly sets the band apart from the rest, is open and stretched once again by Fear to Tread. As its predecessors, rhythms pound as the song prowls ears and psyche whilst at the same time casting a tribal bred tempting which frames and flirts with the winding tendrils of sonic ingenuity posing as melodies and the ‘soft spoken’ tones of Bone’s vocals. Of course it is all relative and the song from start to finish is a beast, again predator being the best word to use as it stalks with addictively sick grooves and bone shaking rhythms whilst stroking the senses with its lithe moves and venomous voracity.
The sludginess of the song is explored in another individual way by Bear River, the EP’s closing and just as mighty incitement. Rhythms again are shamanic in presence and resonance, their inescapable bait entangled in a vine of melodic reflection before it all brews up into noise driven smog of virulence which has elements of lighter almost pop like rock, erosive causticity, and scorching flames of delta blues bred devilry. This is all on top of the instinctive rich grooves and bracing riffs aligned to ravenous rhythms the band exhales like air from lungs.
It was hard not to expect great things from So Flows Our Fate because of those previous singles but the EP has brought home the sheer raw majesty and unbridled potential in the Morass of Molasses invention and imagination. Watch out world is all there is to add, oh apart from only a fool would ignore this exhilarating offering.
So Flows Our Fate is available now via Wicked Boy Records on CD and as a name your price download @ http://morassofmolasses.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/MorassOfMolasses
RingMaster 20/04/2015
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