Kownloon Walled City & Thou

This split is the first in a series that is the first project from new record label Hell Comes Home. The series is called Hell Comes Home Volume 1 and it will feature twelve splits, twenty-four songs and twenty-four sludge/doom bands from all over the world, including Thou, Fistula, and Rabbits. Sounds great, doesn’t it? Check out the website at www.hellcomeshome.com. So it all kicks off with a pair of covers, Kowloon Walled City take on Low’s “July”, and Thou’s efforts into Soundgarden’s “4^th of July”. Songs coincidentally chosen? I think not – but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t work, as this is a tasty little morsel of alternative rock-tinged sludge metal.

Kowloon Walled City is a sludge, or post-sludge, band from San Francisco named after one of the seediest triad districts Hong Kong ever saw, now demolished almost twenty years ago. The band released a pretty damn sweet little debut three years ago, Gambling on the Richter Scale, music that can only be called crushing and dense. This cover shows the band’s softer side, being slower, simpler and also having exchanged the aggressive hardcore-esque vocals of the band members for some nice indie-esque vocals from Big Sir singer and songwriter Lisa Papineau. The original song is a beautiful piece of slowcore with amazing harmonies, and this is the basically the distorted version. KWC have done a pretty good job here, although I personally would’ve done it differently. Although it was definitely a good idea to get Papineau in on vocals, it feels like little of the original KWC remains. Some harsh vocals layered over the clean female vocals near the end perhaps would’ve been the cream on the cake? But this is still enjoyable listening.

Thou have become legends of doom metal in recent years, putting out release after release of quality sludged-out doom. It is a pure pleasure to hear them cover Soundgarden, and turn “4^th of July’s” classic riff into a dragging doom beast. Thou have achieved what Kowloon Walled City didn’t quite, in that they have successfully kept true to the spirit of the original track whilst injecting their own flavor into it. The guitar tone and pace is just what you want to hear from Thou and the dual clean/harsh vocals really bring some proper metal into the track. Wicked.

In short: A great little split that I highly recommend buying on vinyl, or even better subscribing to the whole Hell Comes Home boxset, as I suspect it’s going to be a wonderful collection. Also each “7 comes with truly stunning artwork from Kuba Sukolski.

Standout tracks: I like the Thou song best

Score: 8.5