Band:	Bile Caster
Album:	Writhing Between Birth And Death
Style:	Doom metal, Sludge metal
Release date:	October 04, 2024
A review by:	musclassia

01. Abscess
02. Trapped
03. Harrowing

‘Bile Caster’ is the kind of band name that deserves to be backed up by vile, misanthropic music, and the contents of Writhing Between Birth And Death very much fit the bill on that front.

Prior to the release of this record, the Leicester trio had but a 2020 demo and a split with Mazakari to their name. It was not through either of those releases that I discovered the band and their bleak sludge doom, but instead due to a series of live appearances in 2022, including opening for Kurokuma and appearing at Bloodstock 2022, as well as headlining a show in Leicester that my own band performed at. With each passing performance, I was increasingly captivated by the grim nastiness of their strain of sludge, and eager to hear how it translated to record. Evidently others have been impressed by their live performances, as their new EP comes courtesy of Cursed Monk Records; while Writhing Between Birth And Death is not officially Bile Caster’s debut full album, at 30 minutes in length, this EP is close enough to fulfil the purpose of demonstrating what the band are capable of at this point in time.

Said 30 minutes are taken up by three songs of similar duration and vibe. Opening track “Abscess” shows off the deep, rumbling, churning tone of the guitar and bass working in destructive tandem, and the droning nature of the band’s doomy riffs. Bile Caster revel in dirty distortion, Adam Starkey’s steady drumming providing sufficient forward momentum to prevent their sound collapsing into drone metal territory, while Joe Lander’s bilious growls are as nasty as the sounds coming from his guitar.

“Abscess” is the kind of song that makes it clear immediately whether an album is worth your time and attention. If the pace is a bit slow, or if the riffs are too ponderous or stuck in too narrow a pitch range for your liking, then you can press the stop button safe in the knowledge that you’re not going to miss a change in tack that brings things around for you. There is a bit of a shift in pace later in the song, but even then it’s only a slight boost in tempo, and the instrumental tone is as earth-shakingly deep and rumbling as beforehand; the only meaningful change is that the drumming becomes more pounding and intense. There’s a couple more novelties appearing on the following two tracks; both feature temporary mid-song ambient pauses in which they employ ominous spoken word samples, and “Trapped” actually does mix the vibe in the last couple of minutes by throwing in an up-tempo punk beat. In contrast, “Harrowing” offers a degree of levity midway through, utilizing clean guitar for a minute to replace crushing heaviness with moody atmosphere.

These moments, however, are fleeting, and it is wall-of-distortion punishing slow riffs that dominate the runtime of Writhing Between Birth And Death. However, there’s obvious merit to doing one thing very well versus multiple things not so well, and anyone looking for bleak, slow sludge riffs rendered with a nasty, chasmic guitar tone will find this release to be right up their street. Of the trio of tracks, I’m perhaps most taken by “Trapped”, which starts off almost groovily before dragging listeners down into the mire. I do perhaps feel that 30 minutes is a good length for a record with this singular a vision, and would be intrigued to see whether they could expand their range a bit across a longer album, but for now, it’s a solid first blow from the trio.