Under The Radar — Stone Titan And Indricothere

This week in Under the Radar, we’re going to take a look at two very different bands. The first is Stone Titan, who have released their debut full-length, and holy shit, is it a filthy slab of hate-fueled sludge/doom. The second is Indricothere, which consists solely of Colin Marston (Behold The Arctopus, Dysrhythmia, Gorguts, Krallice). As if that dude doesn’t keep busy enough, he’s released a pretty interesting album that sounds like a combination of some of his other bands: weird.

Stone Titan, Scratch ‘N Sniff
Do you like Eyehategod and Buzzoven? Well, you now like Stone Titan by default. This Connecticut trio have been around for a few years, taking the time to find their niche and craft their sound before releasing their first full-length offering. The time was worth the wait as the band have evolved from pure Sleep worship, to some of the dirtiest and unrelenting hellfuck of down-tuned guitars, earth-imploding bass, beatdown drumming, and agonized vocals that’s been committed to a recording.

Scratch ‘N Sniff pulls no punches over the course of 28 minutes, kicking things off with “I Wish I Was Fucking Dead.” Immediately, you’re made aware of just how god damn heavy this band is and then the grooves start. The groove continues on the aptly titled “Groovy Warhead Commander” and “Alaskan Thunderfuck.”

The album starts to degrade into a mixture of psychedelic perversion and harsh, noisy elements. Song structure is completely abandoned in favor of a reckless assault like “Miles Away From Sober” and the title track. Stone Titan don’t play their instruments, they abuse them.

Indricothere, II

Colin Marston is a busy, busy dude. When he isn’t busy releasing multiple albums a year, he produces them for other bands, giving off the illusion that he actually has free time.

Indricothere is a solo project from Marston and started before he was in Behold The Arctopus, with a few songs he had written and just wanted them to see the light of day. Now, he’s back with his second album, which far exceeds the first as he has grown incredibly as a musician and songwriter since writing those first songs.

While the album tends to blend together, standout tracks like “VII” and “X” have some brilliant moments. The guitar playing is fairly similar to Krallice, but allows for more than the confines of the experimental black metal band’s sound. II functions well as an album to space out to and if you’re geeky and want to marvel at more of this dude’s work.

Oh, if you were wondering, the band name is taken from the indicotheriinae family, the largest land mammal to ever exist. They were about as big as a medium-sized longneck fucking dinosaur.