���Touted as a mixture of depressive black metal's droning misery and the stripped-down, violent barbarism of grindcore, this new band crafts a series of desolate blastscapes riddled with dismal melodic riffery and washes of atmospheric minor key misery on their debut 12". There's an air of anonymity around Dead In The Manger's first record on 20 Buck Spin; the jacket for Transience is devoid of any information about the band members and any album info at all, actually, and even the songs remain untitled, distinguished only by a series of roman numerals. The music itself feels spare, each song formed from a basic assortment of sinister melodies and violent blasting. They open the record with a moody, mournful guitar arpeggio drifting through a cloud of reverb, accompanied by the distant inhuman rasp of the singer, a slow sorrowful intro that initially suggests a more funereal, doom-laden sound. But once that's over, Dead IN The Manger furiously shift into the blasting speed and blackened tremolo riffs of the second track. It's here that the band's full form finally emerges, a fusion of violent, precise grindcore and anguished black metal that hits you on a largely visceral level. While most of the bands I listen to that blend elements of grind and black metal tend to focus on the more barbaric and abrasive aspects of that marriage, Dead In The Manger instead focus their songs on their weaving of epic, icy melodies through the rapid tremolo riffing, and while its not as unique a combination as some have said, this 12" still raged through the C-Blast office. These six songs of epic blackened grind are almost relentlessly merciless, droning buzzsaw guitars melting into strikingly forlorn melodies, the drummer's near endless blastbeats delivered with machinelike precision, his blasts looping into hypnotic blurs of machinegun power, with a smattering of creepy samples and murky ambience threaded throughout the band's frostgrind.