“Monogalia” sets the stage with cascading waterfalls of delicately strummed, deeply layered space guitar while Schrock fills in the backdrop with a low, Earthy pound that’s all ebbing toms and occasional striking beats that constantly stretch the sound to Appalachian highs.  The guitar effortlessly builds into that hydra headed, thousand eyed guitar pedal worship that Manuel eventually employed in German cosmonauts Ash Ra Tempel.  A squalor of distortion rides like a planet killing wave as the reflecting and bouncing clean licks enshroud a dirty, doom-y sludgy guitar rise that’s pounded into place by the 10-armed squid pummel of Schrock.  This leads into my favorite Cavern tune to date; the bustling, busy, polyrhythmed to fuck n’ back “Casey.”  Stephen’s opening beat is a constant billowing roll across every part of the kit while Harkins’ fretwork shoots these hypnotic, psychedelic melodies across the sky like a solar pinball powered by reverb, delay and echo.  It’s one of those songs that makes you trip without any drugs.  You’ve got the drug right in your stereo.  Every few seconds new constellations appear in the heavens; a glaring little lead bit here, a splashy cymbal accent there and slight tempo adjustments over yonder…everything is constantly evolving.  Then the boys go batshit bonkers with the wild ass jazz cum thrash drumming and dirty distorted riffs whipping up the winds until gentle breezes blow back a cool riff-y guitar workout right in your face as you suck up the gush of nature with eyes closed and breath baited.  Jagged, stop/start rhythm n’ groove tactics are soon to follow, then these wackos go into some sort of flanged, scraping weirdness while the drumming throttles a scaling black metal beat into the dirt before they launch back into the track’s tastiest riff.

The title cut creeps in with a textured, Gimour-styled satellite array of slow chording patterns which hint at a sort of mystery where everything and anything can happen.  A discordant, grinding riff soon enters the arena and engages in sword to sword combat with an off-balance, teetering n’ manic beat.  Schrock reminds me of Damon Che but with less excess, there are no wasted smacks here; his every curved triplet on the snares and esoteric, acrobatic fluxes are designed to suit the music.  There’s shades of Floyd’s “Echoes” in the suite that follows where gorgeous indie guitars are cut ear to eye with distorted riffs that soon open up into sustained leads in which each n’ every note is so individually plucked you can hear ‘em all.  To name every measure in this composition or describe the near keyboard-y sounding background FX is a fruitless endeavor.  They are what they are and the climax in a summit of super melodic, icy slow guitar textures that suitably overlap into the immediately following number, “Icefield.”  This masterpiece induces the feeling of traversing the tundra by a dog led sled while the frozen sights bewitch your eyes and brain.  Bend-y, twinkling guitar tapestries and starlit background shades draw down the sun as Stephen makes sure the biggest star in the beyond is beaten down below the horizon with another energetic, galloping performance.  Though bass is missing the sheer amount of guitar layers more than makes up for it and Harkins’ teeny 70s lick at 1:30 sends the song spiraling into a vortex of stoned out riffing might that’s as hard n’ heavy as it gets in the crunching guitar rock department.  I wouldn’t consider Cavern a traditional groove based but here they show that they can do it as good as anybody while ancient pillars of rock tumble around the listener and the drumming lays waste to everything in its path.

As the bluesy thunder dissipates and the lightning draws back, these monsters go into some freakout time-signature insanity like seminal 90s nuts Breadwinner and Blind Idiot God, the music nearly reaching the breaking point in the process but everything simmers into a nocturnal boil of quiet noise mediation.  Along with “Casey” this is by far my favorite track on the album, though this record is so seamless and well-done it should be listened to as a start to finish whole for the maximum desired effect.  “Photos of Paintings” runs a leg breaking obstacle course between Hum’s vaulting, larger than life riffs and it oddly crests with a black metal finish that applies scalding melodicism to the evil, Norwegian craft.  Ok, I lied earlier; closer “Sunday” is also in the top running of tracks with its supple harmonic muscle featuring swimming, teeming guitar licks which scream life and a stuttering, locked on and highwire percussive assault.  There’s also some Wishbone Ash or even Thin Lizzy-like guitar triumph going in this one that spreads its wings into an uplifting riff passage where the only God is in the groove.  What a finisher, that’s all I can say about this one.

As airtight as Cavern’s discography was thus far, you can’t fuck with Eater.  Untouchable melodies, tough musical turns and unpredictable songwriting wrap its arms around you and take you for the ride.  I’d kill to see this stuff live because these cats know how to do it onstage.  Anyone into glorious instrumental metal/hard-rock/psychedelia/indie leaned stuff should grab the preorder.  You can’t go wrong with this, you simply can’t.

“A Shrine Built for Two” presents a lockstep, sweat spitting beat from drummer Max Detrich while Blake Douglas wraps a thick, gnarly bass line around the forward propulsion.  This leaves Dom to drive the song with a nasty freeway pile-up of discordant, slashing riffs and messy, howling distorto-screams.  It’s freaked out stuff with only one intention; to maim and kill with an all-out attack of punk rock n’ roll, directly spilling over into the equally possessed “Skunked” which might halt the tempo half a click and bring up the bass volume just a hair more in terms of production.  Chuggier, creaky drops into more controlled assault n’ battery appear when you need ‘em most and even the vocals become more decipherable.  Instead of a constant lunge at your throat, it’s almost like the trio lays back for tangible songwriting change-ups in this motherfucker.  That is if such tangibility came armed for your head with a scythe in each hand.  The whiplash inducing stop/starts and an outro of nearly cleanly strummed melodic chords further the tune’s mental ward personality.  If anybody has ever heard the lost gem Sports by The Pope (on Wantage Records) this will be right up your alley.  “Salamander” reverts to spine-numbing, high-frequency noise that never slows down for 5 seconds and is the definition of ADHD rock.  It certainly took all of the Adderall in the medicine cabinet.  No one’s going to argue that!

Mid-tempo returns on “Three Legged Ghost” where battering snare/tom breaks keep the girders from cracking in half and a dirtball bass riff provides a perch for the minor key noise guitar streaks.  Dom screams his damn head off as you try to gain some semblance of place n’ time as you listen.  There’s so much distortion piled on top of these tracks that even the continuum around you starts to warp and fade.  Props for the second half slow down where a scalding, busted string solo squeal out melts into a dreamy, 90s Hum/Shiner guitar strum.  Kicking off with a vortex of impaling guitar spires “Bright Sigh” soon morphs into an electrocuted muted riff and head-down rhythms with Dom almost narrating a song until the music throws the killswitch on the kind of hateful noise-rock Hammerhead and the first three Today is the Day’s purveyed.  “Who ate the Sun?” turns the aforementioned influences up to 22, double eleven, dragging you along on a rickshaw ride to hell where it kamikazes all of its passengers and thusly resurrects them with a playful jazzy hoedown that’s heard during the climax.  Crystalline post-rock guitars bookend “Samurai Birthday’s” hellish rhythmic collisions and anger management psychotics, leaving the album to close on a doomier, largely slower atmospheric decay in the form of the plummeting “Dancing Tongues.”

The Tourist will annoy some and please others.  As a diehard noise-rock fanatic consider me among the pleased, even very pleased.  This record packs the same nihilistic black heart that many of my favorites in the genre used to fuel their lifespans.  Gloop is hardly pretty, in fact their one of the shrillest bands I’ve heard doing it in the modern genre but I think the discerning noise-freaks will hear the songwriting and playing on this one, separating the wheat from the chaff in the process.  Good stuff though sensitive ears used to lower tones will want to stay far the fuck away from these nuts!

Part I of the title track is a tonal assault with some of the fattest bass heft, loudest guitars and most head-cracking drum sounds around.  The in-house production team at Grimoire of Noel and Phil did their due diligence and then some on this one.  A hulking Tool styled bass line hooks onto a hypnotic repetition while the stomach rumbling guitars and crashing drums soon give way to glistening, gleaming stoned-out guitars that have a touch of mid-90s space rock weirdness to ‘em.  Crazed stop/start breaks, dizzying arpeggios and other such complexities are only the teaser for what turns into a festering onslaught of doom riffs fattened up by that big, bulgy bass presence and a rain of cymbals n’ stormy beats.  It’s got the weight of modern Karma to Burn but there’s something even weirder happening here and Douglas Griffiths’ insane guitarwork jettisons into a turbulent cosmos just outside a NYC noise-rock alleyway.  The grooves repeat all of the great parts enough while constantly layering on new tricks, including a charging double-bass thrash drum attack courtesy of mean ass skin pounder Bobby Murray.

“Pantomimic Dances” streetsweeps the aural cavities with angular, frantic white washed guitars and jazzy fluctuations between double-bass meets near grindcore blasting.  An elephantine thrash/doom riff interjects the proceedings, though it’s hardly indicative (nor lasts long enough) to allow one to predict where the tune will head.  Darin Tambascio’s constant bass-y sludge overflows atop of everything else while the guitar goes headlong over a cliff into alternating psychotic freakouts and indie melodies that erupt into volcanic sludge.  There’s really more happening here than a reviewer can keep up with, yet it never feels cliché, unfocused or done simply to show off.  This song and all of them go places and this one’s soothing, cleanly plucked acoustic breakdown is the stuff of instrumental magic.  Just don’t let it lull you into too much of a submissive place because this song rips into riff-snortin’ groove and thrash-y insanity thereafter.

“Speak through Dreams” pastoral, acoustic opening is loaned a foreboding, overcast darkness thanks to swipes of distorted riffage coming through, dense n’ gravelly bass holding down the fort and rollicking, constantly moving drumming knocking your brain slaphappy….you feel safe and secure and then they come at you with some kind of thrash/raga hybrid that smacks the senses with a lead pipe.  The entirety of the band’s sound is sucked down a rabbit hole of sludge/doom groove where Alice’s head is impaled on a pike and the Mad Hatter is loaded on hashish n’ opium.  There’s all kinds of strange 80s thrash lead guitar breaks laced into the fabric as well that keeps things fresh, inventive and intense throughout.  When you feel that they’ll hit brake they floor it and vice-a-versa.  Later on the kind of call n’ response melodic jangling that Don Cab made their bread n’ butter on up to and including American Don comes loudly, clearly through the mix.

Starting life as a low end, droning, Melvinsy sludge “Covenant” soon turns into rapid fire black metal drumming and noisy, choking semi-melodic guitar runs that also reckon of the aforementioned bleak genre.  As the longest track and album centerpiece it’s quite a weighty proposition.  Once the rank Norwegian darkness opens back up, the skies roar and a downpour of viscous, compost stinking sludge soils the air.  It’s about as heavy as it gets and it’s a relief when another round of acoustic manna alleviates the suffocating smog.  What follows is the most slug trail gross, elephant heavy sludge/thrash disgust that I’ve ever heard.  Once again when they bring the acoustics back I let out a long sigh of relief.  Part II of the title track picks up where Part I left off and it furthers those weird, progg-y Tool gone doom rhythms but beefs things up with hard-charging, oddball sludge riffs that are so fat they’d but open a cast iron belt.  Every instrument is draped in this fucked-up, brain cooked psychedelic phase/flange that pans left to right and devours every piece of your eardrums.  Closer “Umwelt” switches gears completely by being an engaging piece of folky, gorgeous acoustic guitars and droning keyboards.  It could feel like a tacked on endnote but it’s expansive, hitting all of the right notes during its progression.

Bones in the Fire is a light years progression from the material Thought Eater delivered on their only release to date; a split with Iron Jaw Guru.  They were good then but this record is light years beyond the band’s humble beginnings.  Anyone into instrumental stuff that’s as heavy yet complex/technical as it gets will do well to pick this one up, a coup for the band itself and another total winner from the always reliable Grimoire stables.

On the band’s sophomore LP Passenger (due for release on May 6^th), Rhin have not only upped the ante of their sound but they went ahead and shot the dealer, successfully stealing all of the chips n’ aces on the table.  “Uncle Tuck” enforces the primacy of rhythm as law with Dom’s engorged bass lines usurping as much ground as the guitars while drummer Ben creates antagonizing mood shifts shaking Rhin’s cement foundation like a leaf thanks to a lightspeed amphetamine touch.  The duo conjures a helluva lot of noise seemingly opening up a cosmic black hole in the process with vintage 1-2-let’s fuckin’ go punk rock grooves buttering the bread one moment and a seismic, heavy beyond belief human vacuum opening wide Rhin’s inner-workings to reveal the antimatter crush of Kunka and Haugh (Godheadsilo) proudly on display.  Vocally, Dom rubs strep-throat with sandpaper for his sawblade vocal scream and there’s just enough clarity to his rapture that screaming and shouting along with the lyrics is bound to happen.  Guitarist Tucker Riggleman is tasked with the Herculean duty of soldering together this ADHD trainwreck and he does an admirable job with storming roughshod riffs packing plenty of hook-y chord patterns before saying “Fuck it, I’m going as batshit as these other two,” and erecting spires of ear-bleeding, insanity inducing white-noise that would give any luminaries from the Am-Rep and Touch n’ Go rosters a goddamn good run for their money.

Dom unleashes a bulging, lard-fed bass lick which sends the festering, sludgy punk of “Unwell” over a cliff in a rickety mine cart.  Ben fills every inch of noise with pulverizing, off-time fills that are notorious for mathematical stops/starts whenever he isn’t laying a pair of baseball bats into a textbook punk groove like he does alongside Tuck’s old school three chord rampage at the :57 mark.  What makes Rhin so intricate and unique when stacked up against their peers is the fact that they are daring enough to throw a little bit of everything into their sound.  A funky, desert-cooked stoner riff comes off like Kyuss on crack and soon buckles beneath a choppy, staccato rhythmic pattern which is thusly cast to the wolves in the form of a carnivorous noise solo…and then this crazy contraption turns into full-on, unapologetic fist-pumping punk rock that injects the old school artform with a critical mass of Hammerhead’s bonkers mayhem circa Ethereal Killer.

“Drag my Feet” slings a rancid, fetid sludge groove over its shoulder as it traverses its way across the Floridian wastelands hoping to find a place of rest somewhere between the train station and the dumping grounds.  Scathing, screamed vocals are beyond pissed-off and Chris Spencer-styled noise leads (with an almost Eastern ethnic flair to ‘em) keep the tension high and oddly melodic with the bottomless low-end dredge, hammering angular beats and merciless guitar squeals keeping the listener on the teetering edge of sanity/madness.  They rope and hogtie a few of Cavity and Daisycutter’s towering sludge grooves into the fray, though Rhin are more directly kindred to the weirdo noise-doom-punk-stoner-psychedelia of Daisycutter’s mescaline marble losin’ than Cavity’s constant blunt force riff trauma.  …And though points of reference are useful tools, Rhin are pretty hard to keep a bead on and consistently sound like a unique natural disaster when judged solely on their own merits (and their merits are a plentiful cornucopia).

These madmen are particularly adept at longer numbers which they showcased with the out and out closing 10+ minute masterpiece “Consumed” off of Bastard.  The 7+ “Snivlem” sinks into a lengthy off-time, heavily syncopated pattern where short, sharp riff fragments bounce off of similar bass arrangements with the drumming playing it lean at first and locking into a hypnotic, minimalist groove.  Rabid, barked vocals join in as the final instrument and though the arrangement appears as frighteningly simple, it actually creates this unusual polyrhythmic effect that leaves the ears unsure of what instrument to follow.  Creaky, piercing guitar chords sound busted and battered as the percussive repetitions slowly add more beats and the vocals get nastier; the entire ensemble performance leading the way to a mountainous sludgy groove which is nothing but paydirt.  Tucker’s lead guitar presence is a particular highlight; nimbly navigating some precarious high ground with certain jagged rock death below as he deftly champions a sleek southern lick from his lofty perch.  When the entire band dials in on the climactic catharsis at 5:23 you’re going to be hard-pressed to control yourself from bashing your head through the nearest plaster wall.  It may very well be the deadliest tune in the Rhin bunker to date and it even ends with some rather melodic singing which is par for the band’s course of frequent, frenzied curveballs.

Also on the lengthier tip, “Clay” is an expertly crafted monument to power hungry, soul eating sludge with buzzbombing Geezer Butler inflected blues swings colliding with grinding, grooving 70s riffs run over by God’s almighty sludgeplow.  Shaky, sweat pooled noise-rock taunts to collapse the entire song’s structure at a moment’s notice thanks to the 5 hour energy-addled rhythmic churls but a clean midsection respite teeming with soothing guitars and Ben’s hypnotic plucking brings the mood down to a simmer before a thundering yet memorable heavy riff unleashes the boil loud n’ clear in the form of glorious Man’s Ruin Records’ freedom bound, stoner rock.  Bonged-out, melodic lead guitar work coupled to Dom’s more melodic shouts and incredibly busy drum fills conjure up a dichotomy that’s simultaneously beautiful and hellbent for blood.

Gatlin gun primed, spitfire vocal screams and the band’s fastest, most straightjacket necessitating speed thrills make “Basement” an exercise in primal punk therapy so angry it has the potential to kill passersby as it emanates from your stereo speakers.  Intoxicating noise guitar melodies work in tandem with fluid, perpetual motion bass lines creating some semblance of tangible songwriting in the midst of the massacre, leading up to one of the most flattening sludge riffs the band has ever composed.  Closer “Bad Timing” mingles quirky noise-punk pop goodness with the hyper melodic progressive signatures of Midwestern rock bands like Shiner and Pond’s work on Rock Collection.  After a tribal, tom-thumpin’ beat the riffage mutates into a combo of punk rock and twisted melodic sludge that has a certain kinship with Ohio’s Rebreather (right down to the lung-scraping, torn larynx vocal melodies).  Tucker layers on numerous melodies with lots of delay/reverb drenched swerves (though I don’t think he actually uses any pedals and just manages to create the FX through his playing) with Dom’s bass sporting a walking, plucky complexity similar to Les Claypool.  Though aggression is never really sacrificed in the equation, there’s no doubt that this is alternately one of Rhin’s most complex, catchy and rocked-out tunes and another smashing standout on an album full of high watermarks.

Rhin took me hostage whenever I first heard Bastard.  It was pretty much decided that I was going to end up a lifelong fan.  Passenger is a continuation of everything that I loved about the debut but with deeper textures, more developed playing, even stronger production work from Grimoire label boss Noel Mueller and top-tier songwriting that never hits a lull.  The angrier punk rock explosions and heavy riffs are even more explosive and angrier than the debut, while the melodies are the lushest this trio has cut to tape yet.  2016 is already a great fuckin’ year for the extreme underground music scene and with the release of Passenger it just got better.  There’s no doubt in my mind that this will be one of my top records of 2016!  I’m also really diggin’ drummer Ben Proudman’s psychedelic artwork for this kick ass release.

Past Cavern releases featured atonal, acerbic shouted/screamed vocals, but the band opted to jettison them out the shuttle hatch for a completely instrumental attack.  Opener “Garrett” employs a tactical guitar twinkle that splays open its innards revealing arteries packed with chunky sludge cholesterol and Nick Harkins’ beefy bass ballast.  His brother Zach constantly shifts the guitar agenda from muted thrash runs to haggard doom blow-outs while maintaining heightened melodic sensibilities.  Drummer Stephen Schrock consistently proves his monster status; greasing agile, jazzy snare fills, steady punk beats, overdriven metal mayhem and a performance that borderlines on overkill but somehow touches down into tasteful playing with numerous accents on the toms and a lot of sand-shifting tempo management.  Jagged, twitchy noise-rockin’ stops n’ starts descend into graceful Floydian ambiance whenever the tune scales its final daunting peak.  All throughout the stringed-instruments are bathed in light, love and dump-truck loads of FX pedals.

“Lotus Eater” opens with the finest guitar melody on the album; a lick that thankfully doesn’t bow out after its initial run for glory and makes a grand reappearance at the ball much later on.  Stephen pounds out his snare fills and scattershot time-fluxes in syncopated unison with the fleet-fingered 70s prog guitar runs that remain in the higher register and ascend into spires of noise reminiscent of My Bloody Valentine’s seminal work on Loveless.  I always know I’m diggin’ an instrument song when I immediately find myself dreaming up lyrics I’d like to put to it.  Deranging the mix and debauching the pretty vibes are icy landscapes of shredding black-metal tremolo beaten into silly putty by a furious, near-blast beat and manic cymbal splashes which totally take the track into an entirely different direction.  This is a keeper by any standard.

The title track really piles on those plucky, finger-tapped guitar melodies where Zach’s lick seems to endlessly circle, cycle and oscillate atop a plummeting percussive stomp and delay-drenched enhancements.  Once the piece settles into its mid-tempo, doom-y chug the music alternates between stark, gnarly sludge heaves and burden cleansing leads full of glimmering shimmer as Nick keeps the low-end locked into fluid propulsion.  The busyness of the entire band is frequently astounding and much of that is to do with Stephen’s driving polyrhythms that push the tom-tom capacity for all its worth.  If you would have told me this is an unreleased track from American Don, I probably wouldn’t have batted an eye.  Also, what is it about those winding, heartbreaking lead guitar melodies that remind me pleasantly of the tear-drawing Swedish stuff such as Katatonia in their prime?  Am I crazy…yes, probably, but I swear I hear it although my short-term memory of said movements was unapologetically bashed to pieces by a blunt-force trauma climactic ending that would send a streak of pee down Tool’s pant legs.

“Hawkeye” breaks its knuckles across a doom-y, desolate thrash riff in its early going.  This is Cavern at their most absolutely aggressive, showing no regard for the listener’s sanctity.  Eventually wraparound guitar melodies and ballsy rhythmic grooves enter the mix, but this piece mostly stays sludgy and thrash-doom-fucked into oblivion like High on Fire with a sly yet not overbearing indie influence rearing its warty chin at will.  Again Schrock livens up the mix with assault n’ battery fill-work, rock beats and dangerous rolls, while adding a lot of soul to his slash-y, splashy cymbal magic.

Gorgeous chords culled directly from the depths of a REM sleep dream occupy “Ithican” before the band enters into a detuned, riff-thick chug full of open breaks where lingering minor key licks are given buoyancy thanks to a lifting bass line and Stephen’s space-minded beats.  That’s not to say you’re going to get an easy go of things, because this shit deconstructs into a metallic freak-out that’s like a crusty d-beat lost at a prog-rock concert.  Angularly, honor roll math-rock shake-ups continue to surgically incise their way into the ribcage and these Am-Rep twinges give way to elephantine sludge chugs that spare no rod in bringing the riff distortion up to 11.  A rocky twang manifests in “Braddock” which would be befitting of the Fucking Champs crossed with 5ive’s later melodic riff cascades.  Still those looking to shuck n’ jive in strict 4/4 blues signatures will probably find themselves wondering which beat to bang their head to on this razzle dazzle wall of ADD-afflicted acidity.

Glorious 70s riffs and Floridian melodic doom, runs like a river wild across “The Crook and the Flail’s” raging tides of locked-in groove.  The complexity is still there but I feel the boys landed their spacecraft back on Earth for this one and said, “Fuck it guys, how about we just lay into some big, bent-note riffs and chunk up the doom-y thickness for the breaks.”  That’s not to say it’s a normal take on the instrumental stoner style, because most bands wouldn’t have the sack to end their song with a gravity defying blast beat.  Sprawling, melody-intensive leads dynamically alter the course of “Cloud Chaser’s” frenetic thrash drum patterns and rugged riff terrain.  Despite all of the glue-huffin’ madness there is an arc that unfolds into tangible riff-progressions and multiple catchy parts.  Closer “Elevator Karma” is much slower than anything else on the album; relishing a knuckle-dragging, Melvins-y drone full of choking power chords and dirge-y riffs which send the album home on a desperate note without sacrificing any of the tight playing or melodic intricacy that’s been Cavern’s calling card from day one.

Outsiders sure ain’t easy on the digestive track.  That’s for sure.  Multiple listens are needed to catch the many nuances of each particular track and although ideas are thrown at the wall with glee, a surprising majority of ‘em stick like glue.  I love the band’s prior outings with vocals and consider myself a big supporter.  Though the vocals weren’t virtuoso in performance, they really did play the important place of another instrument, so I withheld certain trepidations about this latest record.  My worries turned out to be unfounded, because going instrumental has paved the way for Cavern’s strongest outing thus far.  This is a fuckin’ great album and I think it trumps several big name bands that have made a career of similar sounds.  It’s harder than Russian Circles, more energetic than Pelican and it’s better and more progressive than anything post-American Don Don Caballero.  If you dig recent instrumental gems from Irepress, East of the Wall and Boar, you should go nuts for Cavern.

Massive opener “Glacial Relic/Riparian Forest” is a goddamn blizzard cast directly from the hand of God.  Guitarist Kelsey Miller is in complete command of the art; launching into nimble, leaping melodic arpeggios, winding harmonies and even riffs that have a doomed in the graveyard, rocked-out feel to ‘em.  The 6-string assault moves like a ninja and kills like a Navy Seal, while there’s an unheard of amount of clarity to the rhythm section of bassist Jay Lindsey and drummer Patrick DeRoche.  That bass is big n’ burp-y, always present in the mix and adding way more groove and swing than most black metal bands would even dare to attempt.  The percussive quake ranges from ambient, halted beats and ghostly cymbal taps to frenetic fills that literally smash every piece of the kit tastefully and tactfully.  There’s nary a blast-beat to be found in this lengthy foray and despite a manic finale of piss n’ peroxide guitar shredding, the drumming keeps things in check.  What Michael Edwards’ vocals lack in variation they make up in sheer tone and performance.  He’s got a frost-burnt, scalded-lung rasp that’s right upfront in the mix where it needs to be and it’s plenty engaging in its ability to make you want to read along to the lyric sheet in the booklet (the lyrics are fuckin’ cool too).  Every single path of song construction is explored during the process of this 11+ minute Ice Age thaw and the instrumentation practically grabs you by the throat demanding your full attention.

“De Soto” castrates melody for thick, burgeoning riffs in its early going that are a fuckin’ catchy blackened-prog nightmare you won’t be waking up from.  The vocals twist into a deeper, death-y vomit as the rhythm section combines their talents for sheer density.  That riff at 1:07 kicks all manner of raw ass with a spiked, steel-toe boot to the rectum and actually coalesces into some semblance of head-banging groove interrupted frequently by twitchy, paranoid guitar/bass melody runs.  This beast gets a nice little mid-tempo blast going but nothing that approaches Norwegian lo-fi speed thrill kills.  Both the riff and general instrumental progressions hook your heart with a meathook and force you to listen from start to finish…yet you never feel it’s a chore and will be a willing victim to Bearstorm’s sepulcher preaching.  A brutish, late game slowdown crunches like brain under boot and Miller applies a gorgeous lead on top with a fuckin’ banjo ending??  It could be a guitar I dunno man…  I got a Sabbath riff surprise during the intro of “Little Portals to the Greater Sadness,” shit son, that’s a groove done right and something you’re only going to hear from south of the Mason Dixon.  Lindsey plunges his swinging heft with a funky playfulness, colliding into a cymbal ghosting jazz beat from DeRoche.  Then the low-end slips into a sleazy, plucky tech-lick as the entire band jettisons all notion of composure into the stratosphere with blackened ADD chaos that’s practically jazzy in its unfolding.  They don’t forget to bring a stocking stuffed with body parts and big fat riffs to the Christmas party.  Even odder, I feel like somebody’s attempting to play Wishbone Ash, Rush, Enslaved and The Year of Our Lord all at the same time.  It shouldn’t work but it does and it’s progressive without the pretense.

A ringing set of chords, bone dry melodies and vast barren expanse marks the guitar-work that intros “Why we can’t have nice things.”  Again those bass lines are belching and purging just as high up in the production as the guitars and split from the main trajectory to create their own melodies while Kelsey winds, wraps and undulates a black-tinged lick around the listener’s throat.  Doom-y dissension usurps the pacing with ugly, sludgy riffs, defiled vocal screams and jagged stop/start tactics providing abrasive juxtaposition to those jeweled lead guitar melodies.  Grime-soaked, mid-paced death metal tendencies also permeate the begotten imagery conjured by these heathen vomiting souls.  Closer “Glacial Relic II” only enforces what I’ve already told you about…the guitar-work in this jam is outstanding and it challenges any melo-death band from Sweden in the “soar department” without sounding sterile, cliché or that “g” word I’d rather not toss around hither tither.

Americanus is a fuckin’ excellent album from a band that will hopefully get into a groove of releasing material regularly.  It’s not common at all for its chosen genre and doesn’t have that “hipster” appeal either; the aggression and dazzling instrumentation firmly root it in the terra firma.  I’ve already played this beast many times on repeat and I can only predict a similar future listening pattern with Bearstorm.  Good fuckin’ stuff.