DOWN‘s latest release ‘DOWN IV Part I – The Purple EP‘ is out TODAY and if you haven’t got yourself a copy yet, click the links below to get on it!

Play.com
iTunes
Amazon
HMV

If you’re still undecided, you can listen to the EP in FULL over on Billboard’s website by clicking here – and you can check out some extracts from interviews and reviews of the release below too:

“Too many bands sound too perfect now, too polished; it’s too fixed on Pro Tools, every fucking kick drum is perfectly put on the grid and everybody plays to a click track. We wanted to be raw and old school – we wanted it to sound like the original NOLA demos. With Down it’s always been about the energy and the vibe of what we’re doing, not about playing each note perfectly. We wanted it to feel like the listener is sitting in the jam room with us with a beer in one hand and a joint in the other, y’know, just having a good time. – Kirk speaking to The Quietus

Songs like “Levitation”, “Witchtripper” and “The Curse” have sense of immediate urgency about them. Their straightforward nature and rawness brings the first Down album to mind. Phil Anselmo’s anguished and rough vocal style does the rest. Despite the uncompromising attitude, the songs are surprisingly catchy, thanks to some well-placed memorable hooks. “Open Coffins” and “This Work Is Timeless” are to other great examples of that. – ThisIsNotAScene

The first of four EPs to be released during the next year, this six-track slab of new Down material was self-produced and recorded at the Pantera man’s New Orleans studio Nodferatu’s Lair. And for the sake of the locals let’s hope the soundproofing was industrial standard. Witchtripper is a terrifying blast of modern metal while Open Coffins screams classic doom. Throughout, the noise is unrelenting.

It feels good that Down is back. Good in a bad way. A very bad way. – Rush On Rock

The Purple EP, first and foremost, sounds like Down: sludgy and doomy, dripping sweat and tar, everything rendered on a grand scale, anchored by Anselmo’s trademark impudent bark. Windstein and Keenan have a fantastic chemistry on guitars. These two excellent musicians don’t sound like they are “duelling” or fighting for supremacy; it is much more like each has their grip on the opposite end of a massive saw blade, and together they muscle through each song, cutting it in half. – Heavy Metal About.com

The six-song Purple EP avoids any monotonous agro-level riffs often found in sludge or doom metal, instead crafting a new batch of NOLA-Zeppelin stoner rock starting Down’s quartet of EPs on the right path. – Premiere Guitar