Gote is the duo of Adam and Jennifer Melinn, the couple who also run the Fedora Corpse label. They've been at it for awhile, but this self-titled Lp is their first vinyl alum. And man, is it heavy. Gote slinks through the same feedback-strewn, amp-melting realm of freeform distorto-rock crush as early Earth, Skullflower, and Grey Daturas, and fans of those bands are advised to check out Gote's output.

The first track opens up with the droning strings of an acoustic guitar strummed over what sounds like bits of shortwave static and fragments of radio transmissions; soon, though, Gote pours on the amp-lava as brain-scrambling layers of high end guitar skree, fast acid-damaged shredding and rumbling chordal muck is piled on excessively, sending this into the most wrecked realms of free-rock thuddery. At first, Gote's mangled axe mayhem reminds me of early-to-mid 90s Skullflower, but then the second half of that first track segues into a minimal two-chord dirge that creeps across a field of creaking, sputtering space fx, and sounds more like an ancient Earth jam fused to a mess of cosmic electronic flutter. The final third of this song morphs once again, ending with a flurry of faster muted riffing and modulated noise. Track two returns to the formless, noisy space rock riffery, a tangle of heavily distorted power chords and ascendant shred and feedback swirling furiously through space, and the last one on the a-side mellows out into a simple gloomy chord progression swimming in black reverb and whirling clouds of feedback-hum and searing distorted buzz.

The duo pick up on the second side with some more disembodied rock chug, stacking in-the-red speed metal shred and eerie psych guitar meandering on top of a doleful reverb-drenched riff. Then comes "Dead Boy Torture Trunk", whose morbid vibe comes together around rumbling low-end bass throb, billowing clouds of guitar clang, and some fucked up scrabbly guitar skronk that at times reminds me of Sonny Sharrock. The final track is "A Bestiary Leaf" which ends the Lp with a slow wind-swept riff and soaring delay-soaked guitar that evokes the prairie visions of latter-day Earth and Across Tundras while bathing it in a blurry haze of reverb.