heavy-metal-darkness: Slôdder | Narcissist

Sunday, November 30, 2025

Slôdder | Narcissist | Shit County Records

Release Date: November 26, 2025

Format: Vinyl/Digital

Genre: Sludge Metal

Country: Sweden

Sweden’s Slôdder has always walked into the room with a snarl instead of a smile. Formed in 2016, the band pushes a harsh, unfiltered sludge sound that owes plenty to the filth-caked lineage of EyeHateGod, Iron Monkey and the rest of the underground swamp dwellers. Their new album “Narcissist” follows 2023’s “A Mind Designed To Destroy Beautiful Things” and arrives loaded with personal scars. The band openly talks about the rough years behind them, friendships gained and lost, and the emotional rubble that shaped these ten tracks. Slôdder remains locked into their mission, soaked in frustration, depression, anxiety, fear and anger.

“Narcissist” moves with a raw and mean spirit, carrying the sort of unvarnished ugliness that sludge metal thrives on. The guitars grind forward like machinery that has not been serviced in decades, vocals spit venom with no sense of restraint, and the rhythm section moves with a stubborn heaviness that refuses to lighten. The sound is uncomfortably close, massive in volume, and shaped for listeners who want their sludge as harsh as possible. There is no shine here, only pressure and hostility. It suits them perfectly.

The songwriting stays direct and unfiltered. Shorter bursts hit with immediate aggression, while longer tracks drag the listener through hostile emotional terrain. Instead of drifting into filler or wandering around, the album keeps its anger locked in place. Even when Slôdder stretches a song, they do it with the same sour intent, keeping a steady grip on the atmosphere. Every track is soaked in grime and irritation, and that steady ugliness becomes the record’s signature.

The production keeps everything in close quarters. Joona Hassinen captures the band with a raw, street-level punch, loud enough to rattle bones. Everything is right in front of you, exactly where this kind of music belongs. For a band preparing to mark their tenth anniversary, “Narcissist” shows they know what they want to express and they are not shying away from the darker corners of their own lives.

Slôdder doesn’t widen their scope here, they intensify it. “Narcissist” is a bitter, angry album built for listeners who want sludge that stares them down instead of trying to charm them. It may not shake the ground beneath the genre’s foundation, but it brings the band’s personality to the front with harsh honesty. The bitterness is real, the sound is ugly, and the intent is unmistakably theirs. For a band heading into 2026 with plans to bring this noise on stage, the album works as a solid warning of what is coming.

Score: 7.0