With "Hell is a Door to the Sun" this Arkansas act drops seven lengthy tracks of pummeling sludge/doom metal with far more unique twists than your average band of such a nature would ever throw at you. They have a great sense of melody as exemplified through tons of nice dual guitar harmonies (think Iron Maiden gone heavy southern rock), occasionally they flirt with samples and unusual synth textures, there are some slick dissonant arpeggios and clean breaks, etc. The vocals also vary from scathing screams to guttural growls, plus some straight shouting, spoken passages, and then some. There's definitely a lot going on. At times I would almost say that things have a psychedelic vibe happening, but the atmosphere is really more of a straight experimental thing than it is anything specific... This is definitely powerful material, though. And the diversity is certainly key, because this is one of those rare bands whose longer tracks are even stronger than their shorter songs, because they have more time to explore different directions and fully expand their sound, which can get rather complex at times. The recording is quite nice. Everything is denser than a motherfucker, but still clear enough for a lot of detail to show through. The drums are natural and resonant, the bass peeks through the dirty wall of guitars just enough to add even more low-end throb, the vocals are in the heart of the instrumentation, and there are no gaps in the mix at all. Very nice. I don't really care for the layout, in fact the only portions that I like are the band logo and the panel of artwork inside the booklet. I don't know, the fonts just don't work for me and the cover art especially has that basic Photoshop effects sort of look to it. It's not awful, the appearance is at least consistent, I just don't think it really works to represent the music properly. There's one stream of lyrics (I don't know if it's all of the lyrics or not) inside the booklet that's 50/50 in my opinion. There are some cool ideas, but to me the interesting aspects are ruined by the constant references to stoners, dope, etc. "How long will you wait until the planets have been destroyed and there's no matter in the world and universe and beyond? But we'll keep fighting until the end and there's no one to kill no more. Because your kind sees an end for our races and space and on that's all that matters. Stoners live and stoners die they might go to hell but they all still get high..." I'll give them this, though... the vocal delivery is so forceful that even the lyrics that I'm not fond of come off as very serious and meaningful within the context of the songs. This is another one to check out for fans of the genre that are looking for something more to separate a band from the pack. Damn good work. I'll be very curious to hear more from them.
[Retribute]
Running time - 52:07, Tracks: 7
[Notable tracks: The Cat and the Snake, The Stoner Tree, Traskwood]
Retribute Records - http://www.retributerecords.com
