Black Tusk

A dense allow forged out of sludge metal and Southern hard rock, Savannah, GA's Black Tusk have created a sound as thick and toxic as liquid asphalt. For their latest EP, Tend No Wounds, they have opted to offer a more distilled, high energy version of their aesthetic, a blistering 20 minutes that captures them at their most frenetic. Shaking off the sludge heaviness of their earlier releases, Tend No Wounds is a more nimble and lean offering, while still retaining much of the dirty, swollen guitar tone. There are surprising moments on this record, such as the sweetly menacing string intro on "The Weak and the Wise" that soon blossoms into a grinding, grooving corpseflower of a track. Tend No Wounds sounds very much like a transitional record, one foot firmly planted in the tar pit of their sludge roots while the other steps forward into a more punk-influenced, high-energy hard rock mode, and this liminality leads to moments of awkwardness. That said, the power and drive of Tend No Wounds is undeniable, and may herald the first step in a positive evolution for the already respected band.