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RIFFCOVEN
Never Sleep At Night EP

Cospe Fogo Gravações (2022)
Rating: 5/10

Say what you want about the over-crowded “doom / stoner” scene and its plethora of unoriginal, weed-drenched artists, but it’s clearly a genre that’s refusing to die. Riffcoven play their part in bulging the sides of the box that is brim full of similar bands, although I’m hearing just as many, less fortunate garage acts outside of the box too.

This Brazilian trio has a muscular vocal heave which in macho fashion coats the rest of the blubbery, rolling and often mountainous riffs. But other than that there’s not a lot going on behind the cover art and this is my major gripe with this sort of stuff.

The cover designs – often daubed in occult imagery – flatter to deceive because musically these sorts of bands bore me rigid, and sadly Riffcoven are no exception. At times there’s a masculine mid-90s feel to the sound, suggesting an act that could easily have slotted alongside some of the grunge and groove metal acts of the time.

Never Sleep At Night offers three tracks and they all follow familiar themes whereby psychedelia of a rather monotone nature spirals in rather formulaic fashion to the drive of percussion and bass, while the shouty vocals desperately vie for your attention, summed up by the interpretation of The Stooges ‘Loose’.

I just can’t get excited by a Brazilian band worshipping the MC5 et al, but I’m sure there’ll be meatheads worldwide who’ll sweat blood for this type of chest-pounding riffery that for me comes across as a decidedly average and derivative take on Helmet, Zodiac Mindwarp and Detroit rock.

Neil Arnold

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