Photo: Mei Lewis

“Purgatorial,” you say? I say to thee, “Nay, brethren, more like abysmal, but in a good way.”

This Chicago, IL-based, all-instrumental doom metal combo, formed in 2005 and to date unsigned and perhaps unsignable, churn out a brand of spirit-devastatingly primal doom so pure you’ll wish you’d put aside all that other “kiddie doom” stuff years agone. Sleep? Kyuss? Electric Wizard? Yeah, all are well and truly good enough to provide you with that essentially rarefied slow-core, that one-way ticket to purgatory, when you’ve a notion of groovin’ to the stoner doom commotion, sure. But not these guys, nope. For what Bongripper have been assiduously bent on forging in their subterranean Chi-town lair, lo these past few years, is no more or less than a raw, undiluted instro-metal tumult of such unrivaled fury, it’ll have you hoarsely shouting out hosannas to the lowest as you crawl, quivering and inane, amidst the unrecanted muck you’ve made of this, your life, on this bewilderingly insipid spit-ball racing through the void of space. And in record time, too—made-up as it is of but four 12-to-15 minute gloriously misshapen tracks (odes?), bearing witness to this, their chosen lifestyle/pleasure/what-have-you, in what was designated up high as our year of this “Earthly” abyss, 2010 AD—a mere 53:15 worth, all told.

Though, sure, all told, Bongripper’s particular kind of mind-rotting ruckus may not exactly be something you’ll have the urge to throw on more than every once so often, you’ll nonetheless find no more rewarding a symbol of the underpinning to all that stands sacred in this, our great Western society, when you so chose to do. Therefore, be merry, o humble fellow troglodyte, for you are about to stumble and fall upon such immeasurably benighted monoliths of sound as to give the very Devil pause, lo these soul-wearyingly wicked times.

Four words/titles/pronouncements: “Hail”-“Satan”-“Worship”-“Doom”

Word!

But yet again, sad to say, to this date Bongripper remain ominously unsigned—surely a sign of end times to come if ever there was such a thing? Perhaps. Nevertheless, Satan Worshipping Doom, the band’s sixth release, was co-released by Féretro Records and Universal Tongue. And you can stream it—as well as their other fine releases—here.

Be wary; stay true.

—Ioannis Sotirchos