Underground Sounds: Chained To The Bottom of the Ocean – Decay and Other Hopes Against Progress

Label: Independent
Band: Chained to the Bottom of the Ocean
Origin: United States

Chained To The Bottom of the Ocean is a rather new band and the I haven’t found any names connected to the group. The band plays something that could be fit in between crushing doom/sludge and hardcore, with a righteous streak of poison running through its veins.
‘Send every God and King to the Gallows,’ reads their powerful tagline on Bandcamp. This forceful statement probably says a lot about the group from Massachusets in the United States. Their name is derived from a Thou song and the album is titled ‘Decay and Other Hopes Against Progress’. Abandon all hope.

The abyss opens up, when ‘Confusion Hath Fuck His Masterpiece’ crashes down and wrecks the party. All-consuming vitriol is spewed out by the sludge monster that appears, with devastating hits on drum and bass alike, that open up the caverns from which the vocals emerge. What a fucking hellish trip this record is from the get-go with the almost 9-minute track of utter destruction.

As the music settles into a regular pace, the screams keep coming at what feels like random intervals, bellowing defiance at anything or anyone. The words deal with destruction and a nihilistic worldview, yet the fury suggests hope is not lost. The riffs keep their crushing force coming and never cease to be full on, right in your face in their vigorous delivery on tracks like ‘Four Cubits and a Span’. Yet, the words offer complex lyrics, with meaning and direction in a sonic swamp of despair with hardcore muscularity. That combination is what makes the band stand out and a really cool sounding entity.

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