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A band name and album title like that can only mean one thing: self-aware, subtly winking post-modernist black metal, or death, or goth, or... never mind. Anyhow, this is a fine example of the former with a hint of the second and none of the third, with band personnel donning button-down shirts and ties like Akercocke’s long-lost cousins from Germany. The music itself is an accomplished if slightly unremarkable mid-fi, mid-paced black metal with rock edges, like Khold or newer Darkthrone. Drums, both snare and bass, have a warmth (and mild softness) to them somewhere between Ride the Lightning and North from Here, which just adds a real nice human factor for me. Good stuff but no great shakes, though it’s fun to spot the mash-up of Judas Priest’s “Riding on the Wind” (or is it "Desert Plains?") and New Order’s “Blue Monday” that is the lead riff on “With the Tractions of the Highest Beast.” All things considered, I’m on the fence with this band. They could very well make the pantheon leap with just a touch of songwriting enhancement or they could sink back into the morass of also-rans. Here’s hoping they choose Door #1. Limited to a pressing of a hundred hand-numbered copies, so if that be your impetus to buy one, hop to it.
| Tracklist |
| 1. Portrait of an Unborn God |
| 2. With the Tractions of the Highest Beast |
| 3. As the Seer Leaves the Building... |
| 4. The Great Celebration of the Ego - or the Question Why |
| 5. Down the River We Go - Beyond the Blue Waves of Existence |
| 6. Across the Styx |
: 24:03
| Buy other The Styx Shipping Society albums |
