Labels: Vendetta
Review by: Alex Deller
Was very much taken with Highgate’s monstrous self-titled effort for Total Rust a few years back, but have to say this isn’t having quite the same impact. Whereas that was a ragged, weatherworn mix of doom, black metal and dust-clogged industrial noise this kind’ve just schleps grudgingly along with a series of fairly safe slow-mo doom riffs, gargled vocal outpourings and little else going on inbetween. The riffs, I’ll admit, are gifted with a reassuringly physical density, but overall things just lack the body, depth and progressive edge that marked their debut out from the crowd, making for a release that’s by no means bad but stands nonetheless as a vaguely disappointing regression.