Not quite the death/doom I was expecting from what I read online. This is varied early-mid '90s sounding death metal, and while there are some slower doomy parts, none of that is consistent throughout an entire song. On the other end of the spectrum, there's quite thrashy, faster-tempoed material too, like "Spun" and "In God He Trusts." Vocals on the opening track and "Broken Home" are typical DM gutturals, but otherwise, the main vocals are a somewhat more intelligible raspier style.
There are quite a few spoken word parts scattered across the CD, including a full recitation of Edgar Allan Poe's "Alone" poem as the intro for the second track. Plenty of concept albums or more theatrical-themed bands use a lot more of that than what's here, but it seems kind of unusual for an independent CD. Mostly, I didn't care about these parts either way, although admittedly the shoot-out voices and cheap-sounding effects in "Pushed" (about James Huberty's McMassacre) and the domestic squabble that intros "Broken Home" come across as overdone and silly.
One aspect here that really stands out is the super thick production, with an almost black metal buzziness to the guitars. I've read this was a deliberate decision by the band with them intending to make it sound extremely heavy, but they felt the end result was overdone. I quite like it, and I wish they had ultimately included more doomy riffs, as the guitars make the slow stuff sound especially heavy and nasty.
Being perfectly honest, I didn't think this was fantastic, but it was definitely worth the dollar and immediately after listening, I felt positively enough about it that I was thinking to myself that I may revisit it once in a while. Then I immediately realized that may be overly optimistic considering all the other stuff out there competing for my listening time. We shall see.
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