London’s premier Sludge/Doom/Stoner-rockers LIMB finally Unleash their long-awaited debut

New Heavy Sounds Records Doom drenched stoner-rockers LIMB return with debut longplayer after several critically acclaimed EP’s, hold on to your bowels, the tone is low and the bass is deep. Prepare the bong.

I have followed the career path of LIMB frontman Rob Hoey in two capacities for much of my adult life. Firstly, as his friend and peer – having shared stages with him at college and visited gigs with him innumerable times as a friend – indeed, he took me to my first “proper” live show when we saw Slipknot and watched as Sid fell from a balcony squashing a girl gig-goer (we laugh now, at the time it was pretty gnarly) - and Secondly, as a critic and a fan of his music from his early days playing guitar and masterminding the Liverpool based noiseniks MPC, his time as guitarist and then front-man of Fleet based Stoner/Hardcore crew Death Trucks and then through to LIMB. Limb. The London based Stoner/Doom/Sludge four piece that seem to be having promoters and fans breaking their own backs to get hold of music and the band themselves for gigs and appearances. Rob is also an accomplished comedian – Stand up and screen actor – but you will find little evidence of that here as he puts on a very serious face and drives this band directly into your heads as fast as he can get his monster-truck Camaro full of beer and weed into speed and gear. Limb is a throwback band in the very best mode, harking itself back to the days of Lynard Skynard Mary-Jane and Trucker cap excess, smashing this together with Kyuss sized bass-licks, Drums sound like Down at half speed but fathoms lower in the mix and guitars are Black Sabbath at their slowest with added terror and menace. The vocals are sparse and penetrate the overall sound like barks of despair, layering on top of music that is all at once dense and low and yet so full of drive and power. A heady combination. Regardless of my friendship with the front-man, I had heard nothing of this album bar one track that was streamed on Terrorizer prior to release, so upon first listen from beginning to end – and indeed, the subsequent eight or nine listens since, I am happy to announce that it is indeed a magnificent combination of personality, character and musical egos coming together and achieving exactly what they set out to do. This is low, slow and forceful. Barrages and slabs of bass and guitars are riding deep in the mix of drums that sound like second-hands ticking down to some latent disaster. Vocals are harsh and menacing, lyrics like “EMPERESS/DAEMONESS” and “Forgive me for all the things I have done” take on a gargantuan feel with Hoey’s voice. There is a sparseness within the music where the vocals find solace and home, but they come in waves, never being the focal point of the song, always penetrating at times where needed. The music is allowed life and space to percolate and boil. It’s a neat trick. LIMB are rightfully at the forefront of their genre right now, New Heavy Sounds have taken a band who are really going places and have reignited the sound in which they live with incendiary live shows and – on record – a perfect representation of what can be achieved in a style of music that really does like to stick within a short pool of ideas – this is not to say that originality is lacking in Stoner/Doom - but there are parameters the main-players like to work within, and to find new ways to bend these parameters, like Limb have, is to be applauded. I was impressed. Having played with bands like GONGA, MOGHUL and CROWBAR myself, and having seen bands like KYUSS and DOWN and CONAN, to see a band like Limb excel live and live up to that on record is a hell of an achievement and this is a hell of an album. Like it low and dirty, look no further. Limb are here to lead you to the promised land… 9/10 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNQfNdGVgjY  

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