Disgustingly slow and hateful death sludge from this Boston outfit that features former members of the mighty satanic punk/doom/metal band Upsidedown Cross; it was that connection that initially led me to check this out, I've been a big fan of Upsidedown Cross for years, but even without knowing that Dread had former members of the infamous Boston satanic sludge metallers, Dread's debut still completely crushes, serving up ten tracks of old school, primitive, sludgy death metal damage that crawls along at a pulverizing tempo, the riffs super distorted and bass-heavy, the shrieking tortured vocals dusted in distortion and hard narcotics, lyrics filled to the brim with misanthropic hatred...it's like hearing sludge core legends Grief glazed over with a thick sheen of Merzbowian skuzz. This band KILLS. Dread's riffs are heavy and bludgeoning enough, but it's those misery-wracked vocals that really push Dread's sound into a whole 'nuther level of Hell, the screaming and shrieking pushed through extreme levels of gruesome distortion, and it ends up sounding a lot like the kind of vocal delivery you hear from power electronics groups. The songs tend to focus on a single pounding monochromatic riff, but sometimes the music slips into a drunken, Sabbath-like swaggering groove, and occasionally the guitarist will rip into a wailing bluesy guitar solo that comes out of nowhere, or the guitars wobble in and out of tune, adding to their sickly, and dope sick vibe. Not that you're gonna confuse anything that these guys do for feel-good music - with song titles like "Ringworm Migration", "Depths Of Your Flaws", "Repugnant", and "Contemplating Suicide Or Murder", there's no doubt that the members of Dread are totally immersed in nihilism, debasement, and ugliness. Sure sounds great to me. The best reference point that I can think of for this disc would be somewhere in between the noxious negative sludge of early Fistula, Noothgrush, and Toadliquor, and the gruesome lumbering death of Autopsy, Cianide and early Grave infused with the same don't-give-a-fuck, hate-everyone vibe as their buddies in Kilslug and Anal Cunt. Gnarly!