Fistula : "the Shape of Doom to Cumm)))"

These guys are already dropping another album after already spitting out "Longing For Infection" that really grew on me. The second song is crustier and not as catchy as the more metallic opener. I am not as big of a fan of their more punk leanings and prefer their more drug crazed sludge. About two minutes in they slow things down to more of an Eyehategod tempo with a swampy lurch to their swagger.  When thinking about what end of the year list "Longing For Infection" would compete in I was leaning towards death metal. I guess the same could be said here as despite the title of this album, it's far too up tempo to be doom, and dirty in more of a trailer trash punk manner than dirty like raw black metal and nothing is blackened about this.

They do get closer to doom on "Sabbath Wants to Do a Split with Me", but with that song title how could they not? The guitars sound big enough on this song to live up to the title. When this band's name is brought up in conversation I liken them to a more meth-ed out version of Acid Bath and that fits pretty well on this song, of course without the benefit of having the croon of Dax Riggs come in. There is a pretty killer guitar solo on this song. They are beating the bass to death at the beginning of "Tough Guy".  Here the riff is pretty fucking dense. I know I always say the rule around here is " cool riffs alone don't make a good song" , but these guys take cool riffs and shove enough attitude into them to make you piss blood after listening. I like the lyrics on "Longing For Infection" better than the lyrics on this album, they were more charmingly depraved.

There is more of a hard core thing going on with "Black Maggot".  It's much more straight forward and doesn't get good and evil sounding until it approaches the end. The guitar solo over the sampled section is pretty bad ass. They throw more of a hard core stomp into " Negative". The vocals have a more tangible anguish to them on this song.  Things flip a minute into the song when the sample comes in, with this comes a doomy guitar solo. I might like "Longing for Infection" a little better but it's a tight margin. I'll give this one a 9, which is a more accurate score than what I originally scored "Longing for Infection" at which was an eight, but I'll go on record and revise my score of that album and round it up to a 9 too. So these guys put out not one but two kick ass albums in 2016, that better than most bands.