Hellevoetsludge: well, that says it all, sludge from a Dutch place on the western isles where Hellevoetsluis is situated. This time Heavy Lord has taken some more time to write and record the material, and that has paid off.

The album starts with the title track, and though it is 100% sludge, it has a feeling as if Pantera has recorded a sludge song, just because the song has the ‘big easy’ feeling, which you can hear so much from bands from the area of New Orleans. What the band has done very well, is to work with some variation elements, such as the almost thrash tempo breaks at the beginning and in the middle in ‘Darius II” and the use of clean vocals as well in ‘Eternal Crawl';, in stead of the just maniacal tortured voice which is so common among the sludge bands from around the world. And let’s not forget about the furious ending track ‘Waiting To Die’, which is sludge combined with havoc.

Combined with that, Heavy Lord also (of course) has lengthy instrumental passages and passages in which the band is almost coming to a standstill, which are almost compulsory when playing sludge. “Chained To The World” has turned into a good, versatile album, but I can’t hear anything actual new to the scene on this album, yet who cares? The album’s production could have been a bit heavier for the sake of impact, yet I think that if you see this band live, it will become an intensive, depressive and heavy experience in the way sludge is meant to be. International dope heads should pay not only attention to our coffee shops, but also to this “Chained To The World” from Heavy Lord...