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I have somehow ended up reviewing every album by this band, despite that I have never found any of them to be very good. This is an Aussie band who have always just had a kind of vague sound—not enough Black, not enough Thrash, just a loose kind of mixture that didn't really have the good points of either. When their last disc came out, they had gained a bit of buzz from Absu mastermind Proscriptor joining as their vocalist, though he didn't perform on that album at all, and this is his first recording with the band.

It seems like a criminal waste to have McGovern in your band and not have him play drums, but he seems to have had a positive overall effect on the band in many other ways. His vocals are good, and make this sound a bit more like old Absu, and the looser, dirtier production also goes a long way toward making this band sound better than they ever have. I also hear McGovern's influence in the more involved riffing and sharper melodies, and from the lyrics I can make out, he definitely had a hand in those. In pretty much every way, this is an improvement over previous Mongrel's Cross albums, and while it is a bit slower-paced, it has much more involved melodies and a lot of atmosphere. All in all, this is a huge step up for Mongrel's Cross, and is worth a look.