Review: Death Valley Driver – Choke the River (2011)
Taking on the name Death Valley Driver takes balls. I don’t know if these Canadian sludgesters chose their namesake inspired by WWE wrestler The Undertaker’s finisher, but that’s the first thing I thought of, and unlikely any other 20-30 something who grew up in the 90′s during pro wrestling’s prime. At any rate, these guys got my attention before I even put on my headphones, and that is always a good thing for marketing purposes. Musically speaking? Death Valley Driver’s debut album Choke the River may not be as appealing as their name, but they do deliver the goods at least in part.
Death Valley Driver are a groovy sludge group clearly inspired by the likes of Down, Crowbar and to a lesser degree, Corrosion of Conformity in terms of the clean vocal delivery and with some of the grooves. While not in direct relation sonically, I liken Choke the River to that of any number of Pro-Pain albums, in that there’s nothing especially “wrong” with the album, in fact, it’s actually quite catchy most of the way through, but it suffers from one key setback – formulaic unoriginality. Death Valley Driver certainly know how to deliver a hard hitting riff, but every song on this album is just a chugga chugga roughneck track with random drum fills on overly tight snare heads. As for the clean vocal moments, these just blatantly take away from the raw forcefulness of the record.
I think this is a genre that can experience a lot of growth, in fact, bands like Birds of Prey and High on Fire have really shown you can shove some originality into this purported un-original sub-genre. For now, because there is some originality coming out of this sound, I’d stick with investing your money with Birds of Prey and high on Fire, and avoiding Death Valley Driver until they offer up something that can compete.
NOT BAD
Similar Artists: Down, Crowbar, Birds of Prey, High on Fire
1. Choke the River with Your Dead
2. Mothsblood
3. Straight to Hell
4. Insect Dirge
5. Heavy Lies the Crown
6. Sleeping All December
7. Lambs in the Wolfskin
8. Armour Divides
Ric Rumblot : Bass, Back Vocals
Dan Hodgson : Vocals
Nick Doucette : Guitar
Ray Blacquiere : Guitar, Back Vocals
Ryan Gallant : Drums
Diminished Fifth Records