By Gruesome Greg

When I think MeteorCity, riff rock bands like Lowrider and The Atomic Bitchwax come to mind. In that sense, Flood isn’t your typical MeteorCity band. This album has but four tracks, stretching nearly 44 minutes in length. The centrepiece is the opener, “Aphelion,” which clocks in at 18 and a half minutes. As you might imagine, the song takes a while to build up with sparse clean guitar notes, until it finds its groove. There aren’t any vocals before the five-minute mark, when we first hear the echo-drenched hoarse shouts of the band’s singer. By contrast, album closing “Water” wastes no time, kicking off with a head-nodding heavy riff, slightly reminiscent of Sleep.

Although drone might be the best descriptor for the first song on here, it’s still got plenty of heavy bottom-end groove. Some moments on this record wouldn’t sound outta place on the new Sons Of OTIS disc, Exiled. Perhaps droner rock would be a better label for a band like Flood.

Judging by the song titles, (“Aphelion,” “Dam,” “Atlantis” and “Water”)  Native seems to be a nautical concept album. Although vocals are used sparingly and the lyrics aren’t easy to understand, the instrumental passages often reproduce the feeling of being at sea, whether floating in a peaceful lake or being carried by the raging river. A neat find for fans of Mammatus at their heaviest, Oceanic-era Isis, or the aforementioned Sons of OTIS. Although it doesn’t tread any new waters, Flood’s Native is a solid  piece of slow-moving sludge.

(MeteorCity)