Album Review: Alienatör – Regrets (Self Released)

Hailing from Thunder Bay, ON, Canada, Alienatör is a sludge metal band that combines punk, hardcore, and noise rock elements. The follow-up to ‘Pariahs’, their debut album, is called ‘Regrets’ and it will be released on November 25th, 2022.

If you want just a taste of how garish Alienatör’s sound is, just give the first track on this album a go. It’s called Revisionist History and in a little over two minutes, it showcases a thick and syrupy heaviness and coarse level of noise. It’s nasty to the ears but there’s something so fascinating about the anguish that comes from it. This is Alienatör and they are only getting started here.

Loss Leader is a tone shift as this sludgy monstrosity displays exceptional guitar groove and barely contained rage. Alienatör moving through the gears smoothly as they expand on the noise elements of their sound and deliver one hell of a head-banger. Whereas Blood Red Blood is anarchic punk-hardcore energy and the title track has a moody and dirty sounding instrumentals and feral-like vocals.

Continuing to push any and all expectations into the muck, The Priest is the longest track on the album and sees Alienatör really pour the sludge on. Guitars thick enough to suffocate, drums that clamour and clatter, and growling, throat-rendering vocals. It’s a slice of sickening heaviness that sounds pheromonal.

Some short and sharp chaos is needed after that and thankfully the punk fury of The Less Dead delivers. Before Flat Earth Society creates mental mayhem with a brash example of noise, Irreconcilable slows things done to a crawl as the cold seeps into the soul, and Your Funeral makes a mockery of traditional sludge structures. Alienatör causing heart palpations through the sheer intensity of their music.

Music that will leave you feeling elated even if it’s covered in so much dirt and slime.

It’s almost sad to see it end but end it must and with a mighty big sound, Alienatör bring forth Wounded Birds. The tone is jarring but the groove of the guitars hold it all together nicely. Before Dark Matters causes just a little more carnage to ensure the attention is held right up until the very last second.

What an awesome album this is.

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