Band:	Rwake
Album:	Rest
Style:	Doom metal, Sludge metal
Release date:	September 27, 2011
A review by:	BitterCOld

01. Souls Of The Sky
02. It Was Beautiful But Now It's Sour
03. An Invisible Thread
04. The Culling
05. Ti Progetto
06. Was Only A Dream

The only thing restful about Rwake's Rest is the opening track, a quiet acoustic piece with soft female vocals to lull you in. Restless might be a better adjective for the bulk of the rest of this Little Rock, Arkansas' sludgedoom act.

You don't have much time to relax, as the slow, bruising riffs of "It Was Beautiful But Now It's Sour" kick in, with vocalist C.T. howling away like Lemmy, but in some bizarro universe where instead of fronting Motörhead, Lemmy is a Messianic prophet delivering fiery sermons in front of apocalyptic, fire-tinged skies for some Jim Jones-like cult. This whole track has some disturbing "eve of destruction" vibe that sets the mood for the rest of, well, Rest.

Nothing particularly restful here.

The album has, basically, four proper songs, all between nine and seventeen minutes long, with two shorter interlude pieces. Songs continue to feature the insane rambling prophet vocals oft paired with, or switched out with a perfectly malevolent rasp.

The band plows forward, shifting up tempos just as the vocal styles are alternated. Punishing power chords plowing forth at a ponderous clip, countered by occasional bursts of mid-paced speed. There are plenty of power chords, but there are melody lines occasionally laced over the top to add (or occasionally ease) tension. I love the drumming, often a rolling tribal feel at times... just feels powerful.

"An Invisible Thread" continues in a mighty similar vein as "(words words) Sour", whereas The Culling spends a good seven minutes of its run time slowly developing calm, soothing passages that once again give way to sermon-rant while the music continues to build in intensity that eventually climaxes to the similar, aforementioned style... it's the ability to ever-so-slowly build up to this is interesting. Marge Simpson once said in a flash forward episode of The Simpsons, "FOX turned into a hard-core sex network so slowly I didn't notice..." "The Culling" turned into yet another prophet of doom lecture so slowly, I found myself wondering how it got there.

The Ragna(Sludge)Rock mass closes with "Was Only A Dream", cult dismissed, go forth in peace and be sure to drink the purple kool-aid on the way out the door.

All in all, I found Rest reminiscent of Indian's "Guiltless", only perhaps much better focused, slightly less grating - thus slightly superior.

Next time you're in the mood for deranged, psychotic sludge-scored mass of doom, be sure to check this one out.