MASTIFF: Leave Me The Ashes Of The Earth From UK Blackened Sludge Bringers Out NOW On Entertainment One!

September 10, 2021 Infrared Magazine Music News, News, Press Releases Comments Off

Photo by Stewart Baxter

UK blackened sludge bringers, MASTIFF, today unleash the sonic punishment of their Leave Me The Ashes Of The Earth full-length via Entertainment One!

Leave Me The Ashes Of The Earth is MASTIFF’s third full-length and a true misanthropic masterpiece. Crafted in just five days at No Studio with producer Joe Clayton (Pijn, Wren, Leeched) and conceived during a pandemic-enforced longest stretch between MASTIFF records, the album paints on the band’s familiar canvas of desolation, but with a far larger palette than ever before.

“It’s the type of music that’s bound to test the stability of a venue’s floorboards, because it’s just one thudding, hurling riff and/or breakdown after another,” lauds Revolver Magazine. Decibel Magazine observes, “The band fluidly — and consistently — moves from sludge to black metal to grind and hardcore, held together by an overreaching tone of misery and [Jim] Hodge’s distorted bellow that sounds like the microphone is cracking apart.” While Blabbermouth accurately adds, “If you need cheering up, this may not be the best place to start. Unless, of course, the sound of the world consuming itself from the inside out and spitting in the face of humanity is your idea of a good time. And it might as well be. Being crushed has never felt better.”

Leave Me The Ashes Of The Earth is available on CD, LP, and digital formats. Find ordering options at THIS LOCATION where the record can also be streamed in full.

View MASTIFF’s previously released videos for “Endless” HERE, “Repulse”HERE, and “Midnight Creeper” HERE.

MASTIFF will bring their odes of antipathy to stages this Fall on a short UK run with Calligram. See all confirmed dates below:

MASTIFF w/ Calligram:
10/26/2021 The Anvil – Bournemouth, UK
10/27/2021 Black Heart – London, UK
10/28/2021 Satan’s Hollow – Manchester, UK
10/29/2021 Opium – Edinburgh, UK
10/30/2021 Percy Picklebackers – Nottingham, UK
10/31/2021 Record Junkee – Sheffield, UK

Forged in 2014, MASTIFF’s unique combination of blackened sludge, grindcore, and powerviolence creates a bleak and chaotic atmosphere, sounding as if the spawn of Crowbar, This Is Hell, and Napalm Death composed an album inside the Lake Of Fire. The unrelenting, brutish curmudgeon aura of MASTIFF can be deceptive however, as bright sparks of nuance and jarring adventurousness lurk behind every riff, rumble, and anguished, painstaking bellow stitching together a soundtrack suitable for betrayal, depression, self-loathing, and total despair, with winking, devilish glee. The bulldozing din of MASTIFF is akin to the catharsis in setting something aflame just to watch it burn.

A pair of early EP outbursts summoned a furious fuzzed-out thunder, reminiscent of the sludgy bar room brawl rock favored in New Orleans, with shades of the darkness cloaking fellow English bands of the doomier variety. Wrank (2016) and the Bork EP (2017) furthered the despair and paranoia.

And then sophomore album Plague blew the damn doors down. Recorded live-in-the-studio in just two days, Plague demonstrated MASTIFF’s seamless shapeshifting from harsh noise to blackened hardcore and back again. The sludge still seeped from the foundations, like a foul stench from under the floorboards. Despite the raw recording setting, MASTIFF somehow sounded more polished and less restrained at the same time. A slew of stark raving reviews from sometimes disgust-adverse tastemakers like Kerrang!, Metal Hammer, and Metal Injection symbolized MASTIFF’s momentum.

MASTIFF put their open-wound sound and spirit on display at shows with Crowbar, Biohazard, Conjurer, Cult Leader, and Iron Monkey, among others. They’ve proved adept and capable at delivering devastating performances with a diverse cross-section of heavy acts and their respective audiences. Festival appearances propelled the band’s miserable might, deepening a nascent cult status.

“It’s the type of music that’s bound to test the stability of a venue’s floorboards, because it’s just one thudding, hurling riff and/or breakdown after another.” – Revolver

“The band fluidly — and consistently — moves from sludge to black metal to grind and hardcore, held together by an overreaching tone of misery and [Jim] Hodge’s distorted bellow that sounds like the microphone is cracking apart.” — Decibel

“A finely sculpted mess of fury…” — Metal Injection

“If you need cheering up, this may not be the best place to start. Unless, of course, the sound of the world consuming itself from the inside out and spitting in the face of humanity is your idea of a good time. And it might as well be. Being crushed has never felt better.” — Blabbermouth

“….an intense, furious dose of grindy, blackened metalcore.” — BrooklynVegan on “Endless”

“MASTIFF’s latest keeps it simple, pummeling everything in its path.” – Everything Is Noise

“a harrowing listen; by the end of it you’re left feeling grimy, as if even a bleach bath wouldn’t be enough to remove the encrusted filth it leaves behind. To listen to MASTIFF is to hear the sound of humanity’s worst instincts, to soak them all in and feel truly demolished by them.” – Distorted Sound

“…a torturous affair that articulates pain, frustration and anguish expressed in the sound of a wrecking ball…” – The Sleeping Shaman

“MASTIFF, much like the animal they take their name from, are large and powerful and there is no guesswork required.” – Heavy Music Headquarters

MASTIFF:
Jim Hodge – vocals
James Andrew Lee – guitar
Phil Johnson – guitar
Dan Dolby – bass
Michael Shepherd – drums