To create some high-quality sludge of any sort, you’re gonna have to know how to create something that’s just as heavy as it is mesmerizing in its own special way. Making it on its own without any support from other different styles much like how Warcrab does with sludge and death metal is to make something truly interesting, and that’s definitely the case with what has been done with Grey Stag who astonishes quite a bit with everything on display with this EP.

I figured I was going to find some form of sludge mixed with doom when I saw that cover art, but, as you might’ve guessed by now, that’s not quite the case as Grey Stag has taken their brand of sludge to refine it in such a way that left my interest no less than peaked when it comes to wondering just what exactly they’re capable of. If “The Boats” is just the beginning of what we should come to expect from this band, then I will not be able to keep a close enough eye on them as it’s just with the three tracks that adorn this EP that we see this band excel beyond plenty of their competition in such a way that makes experiencing this work nigh on intriguing to lap up. As each track in “The Boats” gets longer than the last with the finale being a grand work of 12 minutes of pure hypnotic sludge metal that knows exactly how to keep the listener entranced, it’s at every turn that Grey Stag amazes be it with either grand riffs or rich atmospheres that grip your psyche the likes of which very few other acts of sludge can come even close to bragging of. There’s very little that’s within the confines of “The Boats” that I can’t find immensely awesome to digest time after time even after Grey Stag continuously shows us they know precisely what they’re doing with every note speaking no less than volumes for this incredibly promising band.

If anything is to be gleaned from this little EP it’s that Grey Stag is anything but an act that should be underestimated as they bring to the table everything possibly awesome about sludge metal right from the beginning, and it’s only the further in you go into this EP that you see what they’re made of. “The Boats” has much more to call its own than just a nice looking cover art, and it’s by the end of the first track alone that we’re witnesses to a band that, surely, is just getting starting.

LISTEN to “The Boats” on Bandcamp here.

LIKE Grey Stag on Facebook here.