Band: Your Highness
Title: Cults ‘n’ Cunts
Label: Hammerheart Records
Distribution: Hammerheart Records
Release date: July 4th 2011
Review: (M)CD

In case you wouldn’t know this band: Your Highness hail from Antwerp, Belgium. The band was formed after Autumn Delay broke up, by their guitar player and singer (resp. Jean and Ben), but the members were involved with each other before (they did even perform live on stage with acts like Tombs, Weedeater or Saviours). Yet as from the burial of Autumn Delay, Your Highness got baptised officially.

The album Cults ‘n’ Cunts lasts for less than half an hour, unfortunately, and when listening to it, one might expect a North-American formation, yet they do come from a country that is torn by opposite politic interests (and here it ends, my socio-political criticism on Belgium and its elected leaders). It was recorded at the Epic Productions Studio and it got mixed and mastered by Nick Zampiello at New Alliance (think: Clouds, Adai, Unearthly Trance, Torche, The Ocean etc.).
In a certain way this material does still contain some elements from Autumn Delay, yet this effort is much heavier and greasier. The Sludge Metal is extremely energetic and dynamic, even though the tempo isn’t necessarily fast. Your Highness inject their songs with lots of technical and experimental elements, among which fantastic breaks and hooks, bluesy melodies, groove-rocking solos and somewhat discordant rhythms, and all this sounds extremely refreshing. It makes this band an original formation within the scene, and their proper approach might be the biggest and most importance difference with the American scene - a strength, an enormous strength! The band is also influenced by Punk / Hardcore, Seventies Rock, Doom Metal and (Southern) Blues, and the production, finally, is enormously rich of sound.
Recommended if you can appreciate Mastodon, Kylesa, High On Fire, Baroness, Saviours or a Doom-injected version of Horseburner.

80/100

Ivan Tibos.