Poison Blood : " S/T e.p"

This project pairs Jenks Miller of Horseback with Neil Jameson of Krieg. Together they provide yet another example of how black metal doesn't have to default to blast beats. The sluggish grind of the guitar churns away with an almost apocalyptic despair. Image rougher around the edges version of Celtic Frost without the gothic tendencies. The vocals are lower of a growl than typical of black metal, but more mid-ranged than death metal.The guitars are more dissonant and sonic than your typical black metal as well. The songs are a respectable length at under five minutes. The more atmosphere hints are around the frayed blown out distorted edges of the songs. "Deformed Lights" comes closer to the more typical black metal sounds , but the guitar is give na punk like attack and with the keyboards in the back ground it makes me think of what the Murder City Devils might have sounded like as a metal band. 

"Myths From the Desert" kinds falls out of the previous song and if you are not paying attention you won't be clued into this fact unless you hear how the chords modulate and take on sound that has more in common with Horseback's earlier work. There is a similar tempo and drone to the blasting shuffle of " A Cracked and Desolate Sky" which goes back into more of a punk riff. I guess they are calling what happens on the interlude "the Flower of Serpents" dungeon synth, as that is a thing. The blackened punk that erupts on "Shelter Beneath the Sea" clocks in at under a minute so there is not much time for anything to develop. By the time we are hammered into "From the Lash" the dynamics are beginning to feel a little flat despite the fact that I do like the bass line the song ends with , but otherwise it's a messy blur. 

At four minutes and twenty two seconds " Circles of Salt " is the longest song on the album. It has a darker droning atmosphere. The drums build up underneath it's swell. It proves to be pretty powerful by the time the bass line comes in. I can hear how people might want to label this moment as being post-punk or death rock. Though the vocals stay in a tormented scream so vocally it's neither of those. Despite the bulk of this album's rather monochrome drone . It's still manages to be energetic enough to keep my attention so I will round it up to an 8.