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Frightful and harrowing winds blow this way from Down Iberian Way. Spain’s Aathma offers up two kinds o’ songs on this debut: long and loooooong. It’s doom, it’s stoner, it’s grunge, it’s classic power trio, it’s whatever the hell Isis and Minsk feel like doing. It’s a lot of other things, frankly, but it doesn’t feel disparate. Hell, it doesn’t even feel eclectic, since different musical elements adorn different moments of song in a naturalistic manner and all contribute to a singularly crushing atmosphere. It sounds crisp and lo-fi all at once, and it always, ALWAYS stays riveting. Any time you can stack a pair of ten-minute-plus songs back to back and not create a fontanelle of boredom, you know you’re dealing with a special entity. I’m completely on board with this sucker, riiiiight up until the last song, a dull and needless excursion into full-on drone. Questionable as an intermezzo, but as a closer it’s downright foolhardy. Lop it off and you’ve only got five songs, but it would still top forty-six minutes, and that’s still plenty of feasting for me.
| Tracklist |
| 1. A Thousand Nails |
| 2. Oaks |
| 3. Snowdream |
| 4. The End of the Snake |
| 5. Voice |
| 6. Shivá, the Destroyer |
: 53:00
| Buy other Aathma albums |
