These Beasts - Cares, Wills, Wants

These Beasts – Cares, Wills, Wants
Release Date: 21st April 2023
Label: Magnetic Eye Records
Bandcamp
Genre: Sludge, Doom, Stoner Metal, Noise Rock.
FFO: Helmet, early Mastodon, Die Like Gentlemen.
Review By: Mark Young

Chicago natives, These Beasts, land their debut album on the back of well received EPs and a fire house live performance that has seen them on an upward curve. The following eight tracks certainly live up to their reputation as a pummelling act, with the trio taking no prisoners. Looking online for background into the recording, they like so many others within the Art and performance circle found themselves in a dark place due to COVID and the resulting lockdowns that took place.

Each of the tracks just pours raw emotion into your ears, almost if it is a form of unloading all the negative feelings that built within them during this time. They are tagged as sludge/doom, and I suppose that this description is most apt, but to me, it feels as though it limits them by suggesting this is all they are. It doesn’t play like traditional sludge or doom, in that there are no repeated parts that go on forever. There is no fat anywhere on here and although the pace is kept at a medium level it just rips. The screamed vocals are set against both dense rhythm and soft guitar parts, but what they don’t do is repeat the same attack each time.

Fans of technical or progressive metal should look elsewhere, as These Beasts favour a simplified approach to get their message across. This doesn’t mean that they avoid melody completely, they just use it when they find it necessary to fit in each song. Live, this material has that potential to cause some extreme damage in the pit, especially if the live reviews are anything to go by. For me, this is a very strong release that they can build on.