ninehertz.co.uk

Snowblood's posthumous third release shows the Glaswegians churning out sludge grimier than the streets they hail from, with the overall atmosphere of the record being one of depravity and despair. Patching obvious influences together like a heavy metal Frankenstein, ‘Untitled' combines the abrasion of Grief with the gloom of My Dying Bride and the progressive aspects of Tool.

Mysteriously recorded in a small village in the Scottish wilderness, the album comes as a cardboard sleeve with simplistic yet intricate artwork. The album has no name, and neither do the tracks. This builds up a feeling of expectation which is sadly never met by the music. Each track follows a similar formula of introducing and building up a theme until chaos erupts in the form of pure sludge mayhem, flanked by typical post-rock themes of contrasting dynamics and jarring dissonance.

Epic tracks of 20 minutes or more are usually more than welcome when it comes to doom (see Ufomammut and YOB - and has anyone heard of Sleep?), but the four lengthy tracks which compromise this release seem to merge together into one atonal sludge blur. Over the course of the album I cease to recognise whether I'm listening to "Untitled", "Untitled", "Untitled" or even the gritty swamp epic that is "Untitled".