Endless Floods “II” [Dry Cough Records]

atavist   3/14/2023   12-inch, A Library

French minimalist doom from 2017. (It’s a mere coincidence that I’m getting around to this review on the heels of another atmospheric river, in the midst of a winter of seemingly endless floods.) In this trio the fuzzed out bass and drums do the heavy lifting and the guitar shows up on occasion to glide up over the din. Sonically, there are a lot of cues to the early protoplasma in the dank Pacific Northwest of the late 1990s/early 2000s: the sparse, battered drums, massive bass teetering on the brink of feedback, spare guitar clinging to the baritone register, strained, raw vocals screaming in the background. They thank their friends, family, and Heavy Metal (you’re welcome!), but also like the indie proto-doom of yesterday’s PNW, they don’t fully embrace many of the signature emblems and signals of the genre, retaining screamy, lofi near-punk (post-punk?) aesthetics and general rainy-day malaise. Two massive tracks (24 and 19 minutes) with a delicate two-minute acoustic guitar intermission between them.