APF Records presents VOIDLURKER's return with "Loathe for Life," their second EP and most punishing release to date. From the opening riff, "Loathe for Life" pulls no punches. Brad Thomas lays down vocals like gravel dragged across concrete, while channeling Tony Iommi through a wall of fuzzed-out guitars. Andrew Rennie's bass tone threatens to rupture foundations, and Mitch Bishop's drums hit with feral precision. There's no reinvention here - just raw, heavy music forged in the same fires that shaped their home city's metal legacy. "Loathe for Life" is VOIDLURKER doing what they do best: keeping it slow, loud, and absolutely crushing.

The album has four songs, and "Green Ghost" is first. This is definitely low, slow, and thick music, and even has some psychedelic twists. The vocals are shouted for the most part, and when it slows even further, it seems to sink like you would in quicksand…a slow death. This is indeed hard-hitting Sludge and Doom that pulls no punches. "Loathe for Life" is shorter, but still has that slow grind that will wear you down by the end. The guitars are so fuzzy, they make you see double, and the bass notes so thick, they reverberate in your very soul. Each drum strike put another nail in your coffin as well.

 "S.O.B." of course stands for "son of a bitch," and that's exactly the kind of attitude that the song has. The riffs stand tall, and the strings are bent with confidence. The sound drags out for what seems like days…even weeks…and again, it just wears you down. "Time Heals Nothing" closes the album, and might be a bleak reminder of this fact. Does time ever heal anything?  Not for everyone it doesn't. The song has a little more pacing behind it, but it is still a slow death, and that's one constant on the album for sure. He screams a few expletives towards the end and ends the song with the title one final time.

Through just four songs, this album was memorable for me, and I found it exactly as described…dirty, no filthy, black, and it pulls no punches. Sometimes, I tend to find the lack of diversity as a weakness on the album, but here, I revel in it. It's just the kind of ass-whooping I was in need of today.