In musical expressions, to break boundaries and expand limits is always a driving force for many who want to be above the ‘flood-of-the-more-of-the-same’ (those bands that are just following models that already exist, and not trying new things). In many actual subgenres in Metal, things are saturated to a point that is hard to new something that really astonishes the fans. For Sludge Metal tendencies, things are even more hard in this sense, but some surprises appear sometimes, as the quintet BORER, from New Zealand, here with its first full-length, “Bag Seeker”. As usual, the band used a ‘trademark’ sonority for its musical expressions: filthy and noisy, as usual for musical tendencies of Sludge Metal.

But’s such a rough sound presented here is relying more on the instrumental tunes than on the mixing and mastering, so it’s crude, but’s not extremely hard to understand. It’s a good job of Joseph Veale (recording, mixing) and Luke Finlay (mastering). And the artwork and layout of Jake Clark (Mr. Wolf) is very good, with such colors’ tunes focused on black, white and blue nuances. As the words above state clear, this is a Sludge Metal release, but impregnated with Stoner Rock/Metal influences and even some experimental parts. It sounds like a BLACK SABBATH on “Master of Reality” age with a filthier appeal, but one must pay attention to check that the quintet’s music is carefully arranged, with energy bleeding from the speakers. And maybe such approach can earn the band fans of other genres as well.

For now, their first album, songs as “Bag Seeker” (a slow and brutal song with good guitar riffs and arrangements), “Ket Witch” (pay attention to the arrangements, and very good shrieks of the vocals), “06:32” (a fine and short instrumental song), “Wretch” and “Lord of the Hanged” (a titan with more than 20 minutes) do a fine presentation, and as said before, can earn them a lot of new fans. But for a future release, the band could consider using shorter times (it’s just a tip, guys, you can do thing as you want, please).

For Sludge Metal fans and those addicted to slow tempos, “Bag Seeker” will have a strong crush. But BORER seems to have many aces hidden in their sleeve.