Review by Rosh on March 30, 2022.

The mainstream consensus out there might be that dreadful and crushing music soaked in reverb and grime is not exactly a template conducive to much innovation, but the sludge metal scene debunks this entirely. The seemingly bizarre proposition of doom metal meeting hardcore punk, and then no less becoming an established and enduring subgenre, is unlikely to begin with. Of course, however, it doesn't end there - sludge is arguably one of the styles of heavy music that most lends itself to experimentation. Stoner/sludge is one such fusion style, emerging quite soon after both stoner doom and sludge metal had produced a handful of their seminal efforts. Admittedly, it's a fairly obvious place to go with the style and is easily its safest offshoot. I have a love-hate relationship with it, as I do with just about anything labeled "stoner", but when bands retaining the abrasive sound and caustic attitude of sludge metal emerge within the niche, I am usually enamored right off the bat.

That was definitely the case with Virginia's Cough. Coming across an album like 2010's Ritual Abuse peaked my interest immediately, because it was abundantly clear that this was an effort fixated on making the listener feel "doomed", and in a fresher way than a lot of the doomiest metal out there, too. I think this is because the accesibility or loose feel of any traditional stoner metal is not present here and it makes this a challenging listen, arguably owing more to the decidedly hostile side of sludge put forth on 90's works by bands like Grief, Noothgrush, and Burning Witch. Yet, this album is lumped in with the modern wave of stoner doom despite being altogether better, and much more punishing and misanthropic, than the usual circle of Electric Wizard clones. That isn't a complaint, though - Cough's established presence among the stoner doom crowd is interesting to say the least; to provide a point of contrast, I very much like the abrasive sludge/noise sound Primitive Man have championed in the years since Ritual Abuse came out, but it's less astonishing because you expect a sludge/noise band to be inaccessible sounding, unlike the commerciality of stoner doom.

Following from the latter point, I do have to emphasize that this album is much more punishing than the average stoner/sludge release. Compared to Cough's 2008 debut album, the clean vocals appear more often throughout the songs, but I think that makes it even less approachable because it's stepping outside the confines of a "pure sludge" album. The first two tracks, 'Mind Collapse' and 'A Year In Suffering' comprise the most torturous yet captivating 24 minutes possibly ever recorded - both of these songs succeed where many ridiculously heavy and slow songs beyond the 10 minute mark fall flat on their faces. Not once do they become tedious or a chore to get through, as you await every buildup, every hammering chord, and every miserable lyric, and when the time comes to switch from harsh to clean vocals or vice versa, it just sounds amazing. The harshes on this album are some of the best and most visceral sounding in sludge, but the cleans are themselves a bit off-putting, too. They're high in the mix yet kind of "warped", and the singing is slightly off-key. It's all very uneasy sounding, and if you manage to make it through this album once, you'll be hooked by that dreadful feeling on subsequent listens.

There's a little bit of a pause from skull-splitting heaviness on 'Crooked Spine' - the guitars play clean parts and the vocals are a little more subdued, but it still sounds very tortured and hopeless. Keep in mind also that this is over 30 minutes into the album's playing time, so it doesn't actually break up the somber, bitter overtone at all. This is especially true since the culminating title track comes after, being the most crawling slug of a song on this album and making the best use of the extensive feedback. It's honestly very remarkable how Cough can use everything so unpleasant sounding on this album strictly to their advantage; you never get the sense they just drenched their songs in feedback to artificially soup up the abrasive-ness of the sound. It helps that the guitar chords and riffs are very dissonant sounding and played with a disjointed sense of rhythm, as is the percussion - this adds to the previously mentioned feeling of uneasiness. Meanwhile, the guitar tone is genuinely abrasive sounding, capturing sheer negativity, and I really mean that. All metal music, by definition, uses guitar distortion or overdrive to some degree which is, objectively speaking, an "abrasive" sound to make use of in music, but Cough's guitar sound is not just "crunchy", nor even just "crushing." It's actually like having jagged bits of chewed up scrap metal shoved into your ears. Ideal for anything sludge related.

Since its release in 2010, Ritual Abuse seems to be remembered as a fairly good, if unremarkable, album in stoner doom and sludge metal. To me, however, it's always been a major standout in both styles for how it uses the darkest tendencies heard in either descendent form of doom metal to create something truly depraved and unforgettable. This album is actually likely to appeal not just to sludge and stoner doom fans, but potentially also to black/doom and death/doom fans - anyone who appreciates devastatingly heavy, despondent dirges will find something immediately likable and indispensable in Cough's second album.

Rating: 9.6 out of 10