This album from the Brooklyn-based doom band slipped under my radar when it came out back in January. It opens with a bleak throb that their vocalist Amber Gardner drifts over with a lighter less metallic delivery that quivers with a desperation more common in punk. Things get progressively darker as the downtrodden haze of the second song washes over you. "the Mirror" allows her to sing out from the swirling density of sound that pressed her voice to the back of the mix on the previous song. The drone of the song makes the dynamic climax of the song less dramatic.
Things get marginally more metallic for "Handless Maiden" as the vocals carry more of an angst-ridden call to mirror the anguish of the myth the lyrics use as a metaphor. "Eyes Open" is more organic in its deliberate darkness, and hits with a more 90s grunge punch. Gardner's vocals histrionics, create more intensity and the ebb of the song works perfectly against it. These guys get referred to as post-metal, but I do not hear it until "Generate". Her voice is draped in fewer effects, and she really allowed her voice to be bared in an honest manner that works well for the song. The arrangement works with a more sailing sonic sensation than the dark drones that have driven the album up to this point. She builds the intensity of her delivery alongside the band's climax.
The album closes with a ten-minute melancholy throb that is "The Wounded Healer". It works off of as hypnotic a throb as any song on this album, perhaps even more focused on the wave that slowly hits you and takes you out to sea to drown in it. I enjoy the feeling it paints my ears with but it is a display of being more focused on a sound than writing a song. It still works, but would not be my suggestion for an example of this band's songwriting skills. For that reason I will round this down to a 9.5, meaning it's not perfect but pretty damn close, they are onto something and it is one of the more original expressions of doom I have heard in a minute.
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