Mania / Drought

To start off, both of these bands play in a style that combines Neurosis-y "post-hardcore" with doom metal and some slight Burzum-esque ambient black metal tropes. This has been a common trend among U.S. "black metal" for quite some time now (I'd say almost a full decade), so for those of you who are already tired of this kind of material, please bypass this split entirely. The only reason I have come upon this release and have chosen to review it was because the vendor who sold me the disk told me if I wanted grim U.S. black metal, that I "wouldn't be disappointed".

Mania is the most promising of the two acts featured here. They play a style that is very reminiscent of Weakling and Wolves in The Throne Room in intensity and aesthetic direction. The strengths of this band are in that they, for the most part, really know how to control the flow of dynamics and interweave melancholic counterpoint harmonies to indicate some kind of logical direction.

The first track, "Liquid Chains", features some dual harmony work in a doomy interlude very similar to bands like Mournful Congregation and My Dying Bride, and some of this even carries over to the track "No Home, Part 2". The former track, however, just peters out early and ruins the promise of this band having an actually complete sounding song, and the middle contains these clean guitars that do not sit in the mix at all and just create a distraction rather than adding to the complexity of the material. The latter in its entirety has some great middle of the road doomy riffs and solid solo clean guitar interludes that explode into murky and frantic blasting and double kick parts that carry the same guitar melodies from before. This is probably the strongest track on the album. Unfortunately, these two tracks as a whole do not hold much weight for repeated listens and so this band can easily be written off.

Drought is fucking boring and I'm not just saying this to be mean, either. The entire piece, "Turquoise Monolith", is really just one long buildup that never really goes anywhere interesting. As soon as you think that the piece is going to escalate into a vocal part or maybe a NEW melody for a change, you are left with serious blue balls. If you want almost twenty minutes of a jam band that learned how to make dissonance on their guitar and the most boring drum fills of all time, then go for it.

On the whole, neither band on this release does anything special within the legacy of metal. Avoid.