BARBARIAN HERMIT

Summer, like all seasons, is a time for riffs. BARBARIAN HERMIT first surfaced with their "Solitude And Savagery" debut in 2018, back when we all had smiles on our faces and joy in our hearts. The last few years may have kicked the shit out of the world's positivity reserves, but the impact of humanity's travails on these maverick sludge dispensers from the north of England has been negligible. Meaner and leaner, but also measurably weirder than its predecessor, "Mean Sugar" is a sludge metal record with a febrile imagination and a mischievous disregard for convention.

Riffs are the most important thing here, of course, and BARBARIAN HERMIT have no shortage of great ones. The opening title track is a tale of two crushing tempos, and a loosely tethered collection of fuzzy ballbusters that announce this band's modus operandi in the loudest voice possible. The real adventures in sound begin with "Battle Of Kompromat", a glorious, knotted wreck of ideas, wherein BARBARIAN HERMIT deliver some of their weightiest grooves before morphing into a blissed-out space-bound THIN LIZZY. "Out Come The Boasts" takes exactly 60 seconds to drive another burnt-rubber riff into the nearest available shop window; "Who Put 50p In You?" and "Stitched Up" twist garage doom into an undulating treacle of SABBATH-worshipping psychodrama, culminating in the latter's dark, grinding denouement; and "Deadbolt" is a fiendishly ingenious mixture of primitive, sub-normal riffing and languid, bluesy songcraft.

They may tick all the expected boxes for fans of stoner rock and doom, but BARBARIAN HERMIT are an obstreperous bunch. "Kick Up The Dust" toys with hazy psychedelia, before kicking into ferocious, Southern fried sludge mode, and dropping to a stately stomp for a distinctly CROWBAR-flavored, head-nod ritual. It ends with yet more magnificent riffs, some monastic backing vocals and a big but willfully wonky hard rock finish. It's stunning. "Stranger Than Fiction" may be even better: a huge, hulking maze of riffs, interspersed with moments of haunting tranquility, it veers off on a mad riff odyssey that stutters towards an unexpectedly melodic climax with hints of PALLBEARER's crushing pathos baked in. The woozy and eccentric "Heal The Tyrant" brings the curtain down with a crusty-eyed shimmy, as repurposed Southern rock grooves lock horns with giant, anthemic vocal hooks, and everybody comes out with eyes like piss-holes in the desert sand.

Technically speaking, Manchester doesn't actually have a desert, but BARBARIAN HERMIT weave all their elected elements together so well that even something as sleazy and laidback as the closing "Heal The Tyrant" — which intermittently sounds like an evil BLACK CROWES jamming until dawn (or until the cops arrive) — casually avoids all the usual clichés. Instead, this album offers an entirely fresh perspective on a (sub)genre that definitely needs a hefty size-10 up the ass from time to time.