Here's another crusher from the Total Rust vaults, a full length split CD between the blackened melodic doom of Sweden's Beneath The Frozen Soil and

old-school sludge thugs Negative Reaction. It's rare that I get in any cool split albums anymore, as the ones that do pop up tend to be fairly haphazardly

constructed affairs, but this one really works. Both bands compliment each other's style, and you really get a "state of the scene" report from the crusty

underbelley of the sludge/doom underground on this disc. Beneath The Frozen Soil start things off with five songs of grim, raw deathdoom with a heavy My

Dying Bride influence - ultra heavy, desolate dirges with harsh vocals and a filthy, raw recording quality. Sometimes the songs break off into morose

passages of gloomy chamber-rock with cello, keyboards, and piano, or they pick up the pace with some slightly trickier riffing, but BTFS always come back to

the doom in the end. Heavy duty epic crustiness that takes me back to the glory days of Peaceville while putting their own spin on the sound with some pretty

cool song arrangements, loads of downer atmosphere, and a bass tone that sounds like there is some kind of machinery buzzing in the background through all of

the songs.

And then it's time for Negative Reaction to show up and deliver a serious helping of bonecrushing slo-mo hatred. Why don't these guys get more love?

Seriously, people. Negative Reaction has been kicking around for close to 20 years now, and they are still little more than a footnote in the oral

history of the American sludgecore underground. I dunno, I've been down for their brand of monotonous (and I mean that lovingly, guys) Celtic Frost-inspired

riff battery for ages - this shit is just so heavy - just check out the timeless riff on "Shroud" . Ugh. I feel like I'm being slowly buried in

molasses when I listen to their four songs on this split. And all of 'em crush, too, with a brutal bass-heavy production that rattles yer ribs, and singer

Ken E. Bones wickedly gnarly shrieks. Great stuff, super heavy and very hypnotic.