No Spill Blood : "Eye of Night"

 This Irish band's second album finds them taking and very hard driving form of sludge and marrying it to synth driven rock. The opening track is more aggressive and the more analogue synth sounds do not begin to drip their atmosphere into the heavy throb until the second song. Which drones while it progresses. A throaty bark is the narrative. This instills the anger of sludge into the proceedings. The title track returns to more of the hammering. Yet I think their strength is touching on the sonic space atmosphere is embraced and is at the heart of their heaviness rather than just trying to beat this sound into your ears. They hint at their ability to capture this on the title track, but it is captured more effectively on the second song. 

When darker moods are uncovering there is a more Neurosis like quality to what they do."Ekur" fins the synth sounds setting the stage for the more distorted barrage building its storm behind them. The vocals are a one trick pony for sure, and almost another texture rather than contributing to the song. "Cimmerian Maw" is more of an interlude than a song that stands on its own two chords. "Ossein" delivers a more balanced pounding that broods in the krautrock flavored swell of the synths. The vocals remain a disgruntled howl in the background that like many metal bands just feels obligatory. The lyrics do cut through the other sounds more than the previous songs, but nothing that gets stuck in your head.

The strongest song might be the last. "Dead Satellite" has a great deal of melody to its throb despite the yowling vocals not really contributing much more than a human layer of white noise to this. It's darker and soars with more sonic weight. Overall, this album is enjoyable for fans of sludge who want less conventional colors to drape their metal in. Not as electronic as I thought it would be going in, it was heavier and a great deal of payoff for dense waves to slap your ears around, I will give this one an 8.5. It comes out Febuary 24th on Svart Records.