Kent, UK is known to us Brits as the "Garden of England" due to its beautiful landscapes and fertile land which is home to a variety of fruit orchards and hop fields, now given this information you might well expect music from the region to reflect some of that beauty. Well that might have been the case back in the 70's when Kent bands like Soft Machine and Caravan were at the height of their powers but things are a little different these days.
Struck/Down, a five piece unit from
Canterbury,
Kent are not a band known for their laid back and gentle soundscapes or their lilting melodies, their music is a gnarled and gritty blend of
doom,
thrash and
groove metal that has more in common with the swampy
sludge of
New Orleans than it has the lilting prog and jazz of those
Kent bands mentioned earlier. One thing the band does have in common with those band however is a love of a concept, the band's latest release "
To Witches.." is the second instalment of a conceptual theme first explored on their 2021 EP "
From Demons..", a story based around a fictitious priest named
Father Brown who manages to cause turmoil and misery wherever he goes, both intentionally and unintentionally.
If you are not a fan of Lamb of God, Down, Gojira, Mastodon and bands of that ilk then you might as well stop reading now as Struck/Down are a band who share similar musical characteristics to all those bands listed above, we have to stress the word similar here though as Struck/Down are no bandwagon jumpers or copyists. Being from the UK and not the southern states of the USA sees Struck/Down bringing an air of British reserve and restraint to the groove metal party, where they could so easily have gone down the route of continuous heaviness and face melting intensity they instead prefer to regularly take their foot off the gas and take a little time to smell the roses. Groove metal, be it doom tinted or metallically extreme, can be a bit of a chore to listen to in one sitting but that is not the case with "To Witches..", each song on this stunning EP is a perfect balance of darkness and shade, the band even wandering into Clutch territory in places. Songs like "The Enforcer", the excellent "No Value" and the mind-blowing "Son of the Unburnt Witch" are not just built around riffs they have colour an texture too, these are songs that can pin you to the floor with the weight of their thrumming refrains and incessant rhythms but can also caress you with an arm around the shoulder, moments that may only be fleeting but are the difference between a song being just good and a song being great, and these are all great songs.
We have spoke a great deal about the groove metal element of
Struck/Down's music, mainly because it plays such a huge role in the bands overall sound, what we haven't spoke much about are the elements of
doom,
stoner rock,
classic rock and
thrash that can also be heard bubbling away under all that groove. It is the way
Struck/Down incorporate these elements into their sound that sets
Struck/Down apart from their
American cousins and allows them their own unique voice in a sub-genre that up until recently has had somewhat of a closed shop mentality.
Check 'em out ....
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