Labels: Battleground
Review by: Alex Deller
The debut from this Phoenix-based doom act provides some promising if not-entirely-essential brutality. You get the sense that they’re trying to conjure blasted vistas and the sickening sound of fissures forming in once-stable ground; riffs grinding atonally up against each other and wizened rasps snaking their way up from the depths like something being released from an ancient subterranean prison. Burning Witch and Khanate are inevitable points of reference, and while the music is far from displeasing there’s something – a softness at the edges and a strange muted edge to the vocals – that renders it enjoyably listenable rather than soul-flatteningly harrowing.