The Second album from this Seattle-based band. The opening track is dark as hell, so that pleases my ears. It is sludge, but on the doom side of the genre, based on the grim trudge into the opening track when they start gaining traction and build into a stormy chug. The drummer from Lair of the Minotaur bangs the kit on this one. The vocals have a crazed Neurosis like howl. It is hard to play in that sonic zip code when the sludge father themselves released an album this year. It chugs and gallops its way into a more conventional metal attack.
They bring in blast beats going into the second song as some of the more blackened elements are introduced. They slow it down into the more brooding lurch of sludge riffs, that eventual deconstuct into a creep. There are some cool, catchy riffs that help color it. The vocals are more shouted.It's the swing in the slow gallop of "Moonless' that brings a black metal feel; the rest is pretty rooted in sludge, though the drums can be bombastic at times. Some of the verse riffs they really milk for all they are worth. It does slow into a marginally more moody section.
There is a doomier touch to "Touch of Corruption". It is more deliberate but not a huge shift in the color of sonics employed. Some of the chords introduced carry a more haunting fele that works well. The vocals are a one-dimensional lumberjack shout. The half-time riff introduced at the five-and-a-half-minute mark is the songs best. The last song opens with a depressive riff that you know if going to build into something with more brutish sludge factor, but they fake you and keep things dismal. This swells into a more doom-focused section that stirs the sonic soup. I will give this album a 9, it might not be the msot original sludge album of the year, but it is well done.
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