GAWTHROP
Hailing from the gutters of Seoul in South Korea, megaton sludge-doom miserists Gawthrop are purveyors of slow-crawling monolithic nightmares or unseen ugliness and heaviness. The obvious influences that shape the band’s sound like Eyehategod, Thorr’s Hammer, Corrupted, Noothgrush, Grief and Sunn O))) are a mere glimpse into the crushing misery and antihuman heaviness that the band unloads through its rumbling wall of amplifiers and its torturous songs filled with hatred and nihilism. What lies beyond the similarities and style tags is an imposing weapon of crushing terror using amplified distortion to entomb the listener into absolute dread. A classic power trio on all of their current recorded output formed by Hyunwoong on guitar, Sunggun on bass and vocals, and Owen on drums (but now a quartet featuring bassist Minhwi after Sunggun moved to second guitar in 2022) , Gawthrop have made a name for themselves in their hometown of Seoul for being a merciless, crushing force of ultra-heaviness, with stacks of amplifiers lined up to flatten crowds, humongous downtuned guitar riffs chained together to deliver absolute death, telluric drums, violent vocals, and a general mood and atmosphere of total nihilism and abjection. The band first emerged in 2019 with their debut demo tape, a staggering, imposing example of contemporary nihilistic crushing sludge especially reminiscent of the glory of 90’s early-to-mid career Corrupted. A split 7” with Drug Noose came in 2020 and the three-way “Far East Nihilism Front” split CD with Sithter and Misersplit followed in 2021, both displaying a more experimental and abstract sound, until a total return to form as seen on the debut demo was redelivered with the tectonic, earth-shaking heaviness of the second 2022 demo tape “Jumbo”, released by Cursed Monk Records. This second demo and its uncompromising heaviness was the turning point which began to make the band’s name circulate beyond their home country and the far East, as the band soon made contact with Sentient Ruin to reissue both the demos as a 2023 12” vinyl compilation titled “Deterioration” containing the first demo on side A and the “Jumbo” demo on side B and with all tracks remastered by Will Killingsworth at Dead Air Studios.