Yes, I will break away from Black Metal History Month to cover albums of note such as this one that finds the driving sludge of this New York band hitting me with renewed power. This is more aggressive than what I recall hearing from them previous to this. Two minutes in and it seems like they are in the same zip code as Tombs when it comes to having a healthy balance of brawn and beauty. They are not like many of their peers and simply content with nibbling on the nuts of Neurosis. The songs tend to run along the six to seven minute mark. "Dream State Arsenal" wallows in feed back for the first minute and a half so with the fat trimmed we are talking five minute songs. There is more Melvins like stomp to this one. This one can really be heard in the howl of the vocals . The vocals become more pained for "Scythe" which makes me think more of Crowbar as they go doomier with the guitars as well.
"Famine" gives you a more aggressive pounding before backing off into a more atmospheric section that eventually takes on a more angular slink before the anger returns. This is the first song that really strikes me as taking a more conventional metal approach. "Lion Strength" is a weird one , in some way it reminds me of back when Mastodon used to be a metal band, then it does a werid loud to soft dynamic thing. It some how all works. There is more of a death metal thing going on vocally when it comes to "Invisible Butchery". This one has a more doom tinged pound as it lingers. This song does build in tempo but doesn't strike me as being as compelling as the others.
There is an increased aggression in the attack of "the Great Cauldron". The rasp is pretty mean, though the lyrics can still be made out through the throaty sneer. There is a oppressive hammering to the song as it slows, which is what you want from sludge to really bring it to a more doomy place. I can see fans of doom digging this. The clean vocals return and kinda surprise me. The last song is more of an outro. I'll give this one a 9 and see how it grows on me as it's a lot of fun and might make the journey to my iPod
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