"Undersmile is a female fronted Sludgy Doom band from Oxford, England. This is their debut EP from last year, released through Blindsight Records.
Two girls are in command, to be precise: Hel Sterne on vocals and lead guitar, and Taz Corona-Brown on vocals and guitar. They both largely contribute to the deliquescent identity of the band: their vocal lines are bleak and apathetic, almost frightening in their atonal vibes. Far from what one could expect from female singers, the girls strip down the emotional potential of the female voice to its lower level: only a core of despair, loathing and emptiness remains. I have read somewhere that the girls have since gone on to be described as 'bloody awful', 'horrible' and 'disgusting'... unbelievable! Where that statement comes from, I can’t say as it’s just the opposite! They bear the gentle stigmata of insanity, sure, but their chants are still beautiful, really.
The sound texture is carefully crafted; the guitars roar and moan in poisonous spasms. The rhythm section (heavily down-tuned bass and barbaric drumming) unrelentingly hits and drones. Undersmile weave a velvety dark web, fascinating in its many undulations: it mesmerizes its prey that, baited by the black juice of Doom blessed with a whiff of Sludge, gets lost in its meshes, and dies asphyxiated by the warm gusts of the apathetic despair that oozes from all the pores of the beast that has made its nest in the middle of it.
Haunting experience this EP. Not much will overwhelm you, no blast of anger, no crushing magma, not a lot of variety either, but a soothing and sort of mind- numbing ceremonial. Cold yet threatening and fiercely boiling under the surface."
Review by
Doom-metal.com
released November 11, 2010
Drums by Tom McKibbin
Bass by Olly Corona Brown
Vocals by Taz Corona-Brown and Hel Sterne
Guitars by Taz Corona-Brown and Hel Sterne
Artwork by Toni Le Buque
Recorded and produced by Jimmy Hetherington