Black Tusk - Set The Dial review

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01. Brewing The Storm
02. Bring Me Darkness
03. Ender Of All
04. Mass Devotion
05. Carved In Stone
06. Set The Dial To Your Doom
07. Resistor
08. This Time Is Divine
09. Growing Horns
10. Crossroads And Thunder


The album will be released on October 31 internationally.


Here comes Black Tusk! They're groovy, sludgy, heavy, and catchy! Aaaaaaaaaand...

Not all that exciting.

All the ingredients to make stoner/sludge metal are there, exactly where you'd expect to find them. Set The Dial may just be exciting if you've never really listened to anything in the sludge and/or stoner subgenre before, for everyone else, it's unbelievably textbook. Those abrasive quasi-harsh vocals rolling along with the thundering fuzz-toned, bottom-end heavy riffs. It's all there, in fact, it's really hard to make any complaints seem all that legitimate. After banging your head out to bands like Bison B.C., Kylesa, Hail! Hornet, and High On Fire, Black Tusk just seem a bit uninspired. In fact, if I was asked to describe Black Tusk in 3 words, the only appropriate response would be "second-rate Bison*.

It is what it is, though. Hearing this through less seasoned ears might actually be a treat. It's an embodiment of everything sludge/stoner; dirty grimy, catchy, and heavy in an earthy sort of way. Hell, it's even got the John Baizley artwork to boot. I can understand a lot of bands in this circle are sort of creating their own regional brand of pounding sludge metal (Savannah, Georgia - home to Kylesa, Black Tusk and Baroness.) However, these guys just don't have the personality their compatriots do. It's like that friend who steals all your best jokes, then consistently fucks up every punch line.

Set The Dial is not a terrible album by any means. It just seems like Black Tusk may just be one of the first in a generation of assembly-line sludge bands. It had to happen some time.

*Bison can be switched out for any number of bands in this case.