BitterJalapeno Released in 2018, Voidwalker is the debut studio album by Canadian sludge/doom band Tongue Eating Louse. I discovered the band while looking down the list of artists recently added to the MMA database and found the name “Tongue Eating Louse” intriguing enough to merit further research.

Comprised of three long tracks, the album possesses a haunting, dissonant and abrasive sound which barely lets up apart from the occasional slightly more melodic and harmonious parts. Despite the unrelenting abrasion, there’s something quite graceful about how the music smoothly undulates from passage to passage while still maintaining a constant sense of impending doom.

The usual boxes for sludge/doom are ticked – down tuned guitars with a heavy tone, slow pace and powerful thundering drums. Two vocalists can be identified – one with a low growl and another with a higher pitched scream reminiscent of the the 00s melodic metalcore scene although they are equal in terms of ferocity. The production is good for a very much unknown band.

Further research provided disappointment as I discovered Tongue Eating Louse are no longer together. This is a shame because “Voidwalker” is certainly a promising debut album and it would have been interesting to see how the band was to develop their sound further. It’s by no means perfect but certainly an album worth checking out.