I've been waiting on this one ever since it was first announced at the end of last year - a split album featuring two bands from Savannah, Georgia, each

one in possession of their own unique progressive, crusty metal: Baroness with their epic, melodic crustcore-prog and Unpersons's manic, gloriously weird

combination of the Jesus Lizard and metallic pummel. Featuring more amazing artwork from Baroness' John Dyer Baizley, A Grey Sigh In A Flower Husk

brings these two together for just over a half-hour of raging power, which begins with two new Baroness tracks that serve as an appetite-whetter for their

upcoming album for Relapse. Yeah, there's only two songs from 'em here, but it's almost 18 minutes of music on their half of the split and frankly, both of

these songs CRUSH IT. "Teiresias" is the shorter of the two, a mighty riff feast that twists and turns through winding metallic crush and spidery twin-guitar

harmonies, which explodes brilliantly and suddenly in the middle of the song with a passage of downtuned sludgy majesty that sounds like The FUcking Champs

meets Torche, at least to my overcaffienated brain. Their second track is called "Cavite", and this is Baroness at their sprawling, proggy best, a labyrinth

of chugging guitars and Maiden-eqsue harmonies, hypnotic riffchug heard through a cheap microphone which suddenly erupts into panoramic prog-metal, a dreamy

middle passage through spacey post-rock, and a freaked-out drum solo. Awesome! These guys take the best elements of The Champs and epic crustlords

Tragedy, Neurosis and Mastodon and turn out a mighty metallic assault that continues to kick my ass each time I spin these jams.

So how do Baroness' buddies and fellow Savannah-ites measure up on this shared split? Pretty fuckin' solid, actually. Unpersons have been generally

overlooked despite having a couple of releases on Life Is Abuse and At A Loss, but their fusion of Jesus Lizard's manic noise rock and crusty metal is

completely crushing, as is displayed with their 4 songs here. The riffs go from hammering sludge to more jagged and jangly chords, and Kylesa drummer Carl

McGinley bashes the crap out of his kit, anchoring the band with furious fills and offbeat rhythms. It's the vocals that really set Unpersons apart though, a

psychotic mewling meltdown that's very reminsicent of David Yow. Unperson's highlight here is the final track "A Small Gesture, A Thousand Small Happy

Gestures (Shone In The Dust)", a lengthy freakout that drops some flattening bomb-string action in amongst their psychotic post-punk flavored heaviness. It's

massive neo-noise rock, as unhinged as recent releases from Black Elk and Akimbo, and an excellent companion to Baroness on this split. Highly recommended!!