���Back in stock. To be honest, pirate-themed heavy metal isn't something I'm going to get too excited over. Talk about a concept that has been played out in metal circles; leave me those early Running Wild albums, and I think I'm good. But quirky Australian death metallers Cauldron Black Ram manage to take that now timeworn pirate obsession and turns it into something genuinely grim and gruesome, immersing their old-school death in visions of violent sea-faring piracy and creaking nautical horror, crafting an atmosphere on their albums that feels more like something torn from the pages of a William Hope Hodgson story. And all without a single fucking sing-along shanty in sight, thank Christ. Much like labelmates Vastum, Cauldron Black Ram (who also features members of Mournful Congregation, Martire, and Stargazer) don't try to radically reshape traditional death metal, but rather imbue that classic old-school sound with enough of their own unique personality and imagery to create something that still manages to come across as totally their own.

��� The Ram's third album Stalagmire picks right up where they left off with their previous LP, dragging the listener through nine tracks of dank, barbaric death metal, the songs rife with thunderous double-bass battery and double-time thrashing violence, descending into crawling doom-laden heaviness and strange chorus-drenched sludge, the guitarists lashing the downtuned grave-slime with chaotic leads and maniacal soloing, their massive, sometimes angular riffs driving through the dank bass-heavy murk, cutting monstrous morbid grooves throughout the whole album. Fucking killer stuff, and it's not all moldering ghastly cave-sludge, either; the Ram whip out some wicked old-school metal on songs like "Fork Through Pitch", "Cavern Fever" and "Bats", slipping from churning blast-violence and primal thrash into Maidenesque guitar harmonies, the tunes possessed with all kinds of infectious, anthemic power, with some of the catchier songs locking into some seriously rocking mid-tempo death metal. Even at it's lowest and most punishing, Stalagmire keeps going back to that strong melodic undercurrent, and some of this sort of reminds me of old-schoolers Deceased, hewing to an early interpretation of death metal more rooted in a classic thrash aesthetic. The heavy doses of off-kilter phrasing and quirky songwriting keep this stuff from ever getting too predictable though, like the shambling off-time death-lurch that puts "The Devils Trotters" all off balance, and there are neat atmospheric touches like the rhythmic cadence of clanking chains that lends a ghostly vibe to "From Whence The Old Skull Came", and the solemn chant like backing vocals that are scattered throughout the album. Like some seaweed-tangled cross between aforementioned death metallers Deceased and the sepulchral deathsludge of Autopsy, this stuff seeps with an atmosphere of sea-faring evil even as it flattens you with it's cavernous metallic crush. Killer.