heavy-metal-darkness: Cattle Hammer |Dark Thoughts With Lights Out |Road To Masochist

Sunday, February 8, 2026

Cattle Hammer |Dark Thoughts With Lights Out |Road To Masochist

Release Date February 6^th, 2026
Format CD/Vinyl
Genre Blackened Sludge/Drone Metal
Country United Kingdom

Born from the wreckage of the UK underground in 2023, Cattle Hammer is the brainchild of Duncan Wilkins, a man whose resume includes filth-peddlers like Fukpig and Mistress. If you know his history, you know he isn't here to write radio hits. The band crawled out of the gate with a massive 71-minute endurance test called "Methlehem", proving they have zero interest in brevity or your comfort. Now, they’ve returned to follow up that initial descent into madness with their first proper full-length, a four-track exercise in misery titled "Dark Thoughts With Lights Out".

Look, "Dark Thoughts With Lights Out" is a suffocating experience, which is clearly what these guys wanted. It kicks off with "Gloomsower", and right away, the sludge is thick enough to choke on. The vocals sound like someone being buried alive, screaming through a foot of wet soil. It’s slow. It’s painful. It drags its feet like a death march where the destination is just a bigger hole in the ground. There’s no flash here, just a vibrating, low-end drone that wants to rattle your teeth out of your gums.

Then you get "Rotting", which opens with some spoken-word bitterness that actually makes you feel like garbage. The riffs are massive, vibrating monoliths that just hang there in the air, refusing to move. It’s the sound of total stagnation. It makes you feel like time is stopping, but not in a cool way, more like watching your own life waste away while you’re paralyzed on the floor. It’s a total bummer, which, in the world of blackened sludge, is usually a compliment, though the pacing might test the patience of anyone who isn't already half-dead inside.

By the time "Watchmen, Alone" and "Body Puzzle" roll around, the band leans harder into the drone part of their description. "Watchmen, Alone" starts with some disorienting noise before the hammer finally drops in slow motion. It’s mean and brutish, but it stays in that one gear for a long time. "Body Puzzle" finishes the job with riffs that sound like planets grinding together. The vocals are panicked and claustrophobic, adding to the general sense of "I need to get out of this room."

It’s a decent debut if you want to feel like a total wreck, but it's a lot to take in one sitting. The production is raw and stays away from any studio magic, which keeps the misery feeling real. It’s cruel, it’s loud, and it definitely doesn't care about your mental health. If you’re into the kind of stuff Khanate or Burning Witch put out, you’ll find some common ground here, even if it feels a bit like a slog to get through the whole thing.

Score: 6.5