Drain The Sky

One of the Bay Area’s finest indie labels and foster home to Dystopia, Grief, Brainoil and the beyond-rare Melvins live eight-track cassette, Life Is Abuse now backs Oakland’s Drain the Sky on their self-titled four-song EP. After the very Dystopia-stained "Intro” instrumental, the dynamite "Under the Sun” immediately recalls the classic pre-Sleep of Asbestosdeath. Carl Auge’s loping bass lines, coupled with George Wunderlich’s atonal guitar chords, create a bubbling doom brew, replete with Neurosis-styled triple vocals. Drummer Jason Willer adds fills not unlike Theory of Ruin’s Ches Smith, yet he’s not afraid to break out of the sludge model for the punk rock "Image of a Wall.” A smashing debut with engrossing cover art by Auge, Drain the Sky tap into the not-so-ancient wellspring of said bands to become the new end time visionaries. (Life Is Abuse, www.lifeisabuse.com) Chris Ayers