Album Review: Cattle Hammer – Dark Thoughts with Lights Out (Road to Masochist)

Formed in the spring of 2023 by Duncan Wilkins (Fukpig/Mistress/ex-Anaal Nathrakh), Cattle Hammer is a blend of sludge, drone, blackness and negative emotion. The album, ‘Dark Thoughts with Lights Out’ will be released by Road to Masochist on CD and vinyl on February 6th, 2026.

Not for the faint-hearted, Cattle Hammer’s Dark Thoughts with Lights Out is what happens when a nihilistic mindset runs headfirst into a love of sludge, doom, and drone. A four-track tome of bleak sounds that suck away at the soul. Impossibly weighty, extravagantly horror-laden, wickedly twisted, and exceptionally effective, it’s an experience that you will remember, even if your takeaway isn’t as positive as mine.

It all comes down to taste. The noise that Cattle Hammer create, the combination of genres, and how focused the heavy vitriol is, appeals to me. Beginning with the tortuous sound of Gloom Sower, where a cacophony of misery threatens to engulf the mind over (nearly) ten minutes. It’s an agonising experience, drawn out and deliberate, and effortlessly dark. If you find yourself sinking into this one, it’s already too late.

The next track, Rotting, takes on a different form, albeit rooted in the devilishness sound of doom. Here, Cattle Hammer’s approach is more lethargic and more leisurely, drawing from deeper depths where no light can ever reach. The reverb of guitars, the tectonic weight of the drums, the stomach-churning vocals, it’s all so intense.

Watchmen, Alone is next and the atmospheric intro shifts things slightly, creating a disconcerting sonic environment that evolves, drone-style, into something more based in noise. The rumbling and grumbling horror of it all, coupled with sudden vocal howls and screams makes it one of the more unique listens on the album.

Finally, it’s Body Puzzle, a painstakingly drawn-out showcase of heft and girth. Slow moving, destructive, and daringly intense, it’s the kind of track that is near indescribable in nature, yet, for fans of laborious doom and sludge, it is so damn compelling. I absolutely love it and find it one of the most impressive tracks of all. Which is saying something as each effort here is impressively memorable.

Cattle Hammer have set the 2026 bar high as far as smothering darkness and soul rendering sludge goes.

Cattle Hammer – Dark Thoughts with Lights Out Track Listing:

1. Gloom Sower
2. Rotting
3. Watchmen, Alone
4. Body Puzzle

Links

Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram | Road to Masochist