Just got this back in stock. If you're a fan of the nuttier underbelly of American black metal, you are no doubt aware of the uber-prolific JR Preston, also known as The Rev. I've been following his work for years as this guy has been involved in a whole host of weird, fucked-up black metal projects that I'm a fan of, from the blazing blacknoise holocausts of Enbilulugugal to the low-fi Ted Nugent-influenced necro of Tjolgtjar, and the bizarre blackened chiptune metal of Xexyz. All of which are big faves of mine that I've been carrying here at C-Blast. My favorite of his many different bands though is probably the mighty Blood Cult, a gang of Midwestern "redneck black metal" demons who returned here with their first new album since 2005's We Who Walk Behind The Rows (and a subsequent split disc with Enbilulugugal). Now on the more well known black/death metal label Moribund, We Are The Cult Of The Plains is still a weird, rocking blast of scuzzy black metal that has evolved into something even more unique than before. At first glance, the band has all the appearance of being another raw black metal band; you've got a suitably grainy album cover, pentagrams and other black metal signifiers. But it's a very odd niche that these guys have carved out, bringing some very non-black metal sounds into their music that make this sound uniquely American compared to the bland Emperor and Darkthrone clones that continue to infest the underground. Take the opener "My Forest Home", a fast, wintry blast of low-fi black metal they are known for, some primitive Darkthrone-esque riffing, croaked vocals, a super murky production, but then it downshifts into withered, mid tempo rock n' roll bathed in a weird lunar glow, the putrid rural blackness birthing some killer 70's guitar hero action, a mix of Ted Nugent and garagey necro filth that's similar to Tjolgtjar but way harder and thrashier. The rest of the album is loaded with this 70s rock influence as well as weirder sounds; there's some awesome wonky Greg Ginn-like soloing, weird witchy screams, propulsive krautrock-like grooves, bursts of blackened punk, even some surfy twang emerging on some of the guitar parts. One of the oddest songs here is "Illinoisan Alter", a mix of hillbilly country music and blackened evil that sounds like a satanic hoedown, and later takes off into some wild psychedelia. We Are The Cult Of The Plains is fucking awesome, part acid-soaked psych, part cloven hoofed black metal, part Nuge, ending with the weirdest track of all, "Never Said Goodbye", where the band lurches into a strange rockabilly crawl that resembles a cross between The Cramps and Deathcrush-era Mayhem, that trails off into an unlisted track of lysergic noise, creepy Theremin sounds, cut-up voices and electronics, vaguely reminding me of one of those primitive proto-electronic film scores you'd hear on a low budget sasquatch splatter flick from the mid-70's.