There's an awful lot of sludge out there. We've reached a point where the amount of useless sludge music by far has overtaken the amount of useless metalcore.

Zaum from Canada are more doom than sludge, though, and not only that; they incorporate Middle Eastern sounds en massé and basically have a completely different and very refreshing take on the doom genre. The usual comparisons to Black Sabbath and whatnot don't really apply here. Yeah, a couple of minutes into Peasant of Parthia, there's a bit of Sabbathesque riffing (by far the hardest and most in-your-face passage of the album), but the exotic sounds permeate everything and take over most of the listening experience.

As much as I'd wish that many more bands would dare to do what Zaum have done and do something entirely different instead of creating superfluous records full of doom-like sludge like all the others, I have to warn you that parts of 'Oracle' tend to drag out and become a trifle boring. It's all a matter of taste and patience, of course. If you like doomy sludge, I suggest you try out this refreshing release.