Sometimes quite slow and doomy, rockers FOUNDRY definitely aim to blow away the cobwebs with their latest, self-titled album (That's "Foundry" for anyone not following already).

This Vegas trio (plus special guests) create a kind of heavy rock that really really blasts out of the speakers and grabs your attention. The album is produced to sound huge and fat and sounds powerful even at quieter volumes. The sound of the group is obviously inspired by classic and stoner metal acts such as BLACK SABBATH and BLACK LABEL SOCIETY. The tracks are all loud, brash, simple and full of energy.

The tracks follow standard structures- riff verse, chorus, verse, chorus etc, with almost no variation from this. The exception (let's face it, there's always one) is the track "Calling Allah", which has a distinctly Arabic flavour in the quieter sections, which creates a really different and interesting atmosphere, contrasting with the rest of the tracks. The use of guitar effects makes the guitar sound like an oud, and gives it a very distant feel- like reaching back through the sands of time to bring music through aeons... "Shake" has a really slinky groove, and is almost like a dive bar love (or should that be lust) song, with a short and sweet slide guitar solo.

Overall, this album needs to be played loud. It easily stands up to other filthy heavy rock albums, and sounds like it belongs at the back of a little pub gloriously offending the ears of everyone who passes by with the simple, heavy riffs and melodic guitar breaks that make FOUNDRY a pretty apt name for this group: weighty, groovy metal that hasn't been forged into any finesse or perfect object, but is left rough round the edges and raw. A great, gritty hard rock romp.