I found a bunch of cool stuff in the Snip-Snip catalog recently when we went to reorder some older titles that we had sold out of. In the past, I usually kept an eye on what this tiny DIY label from Columbus, Ohio was putting out, but over the past three years I had fallen out of the loop with the new stuff that was being issued by Snip-Snip. The label is run by David Reed, who is also the brain behind Luasa Raelon and Envenomist, and he's accumulated a hefty catalog of harsh noise and heavy drone releases that are almost all uniformly packaged in slimline jewel cases with minimal but cool looking sheets of xeroxed paper that are layered together to make up the cover. A Snip-Snip disc is usually recognizeable at first sight, and all of the releases on the label are cool, inexpensive slabs of challenging underground noise and drone music. Digging back through their catalog, we found all kinds of stuff that I had overlooked since 2005, like this 2005 full length from David's terrific synth-driven, isolationist death ambient project Envenomist. Spires is made up of four long pieces of heavily layered industrial dronescapes, constructed out of cavernous rumbling synthesizers that are forged into icy, threatening ambience and deeply sinister minor-key chordal changes, at times sounding like the distant swell of orchestral strings but clouded in darkness and shadows, and surrounded by whirring noises that softly decay into the distance, shimmering metallic textures and buzzing drones that soar over Envenomist's frozen wasteland . With tracks like "Alien Skies", "Monoliths", "Visitors", and "Dread Cities", and the blurry image on the cover of the alien-looking geometric towers looming out of some grey abyss, Spires comes off like a dread filled film score, like the utterly forbidding soundtrack to John Carpenter's The Thing filtered through jet-black kosmiche krautrock synths and rendered even more minimal and oppressive and fearsome. All of Envenomists synthdoom discs and 7"s are consistently great, and if you liked the Abyssal Siege CD on Troniks, you'll love this. And fans of the sweeping, grim ambience of Lustmord, Yen Pox, Anenzephalia, and Black Seas Of Infinity would do well to check out anything from Envenomist if you haven't already done so.