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Sophomore album from Canadian act Ischemic, who work in a moody vein of Doom/Death that flirts with Black Metal in the vocals and some tremolo sections. This style of Metal lives or dies on either how heavy you get or how well you wield atmosphere, and Ischemic does both of these things pretty well thanks to some really sharp melodic work and a guitar tone that cuts like a jagged blade. They do pick up the pace in places, as on the opener "Scabs", but these are the least interesting parts of the album, as the band really shines when they play those mean, dragging riffs that are as hateful as they are desolate. Songs like "Crawl Out of Hell" and "Illusion of Humanity" are prime examples of what this band can do at full power, but the 20+-minute closer "Scattering Garden" could have been cut by at least five minutes and been much better for it, even if the song just kind of stops without fully resolving the tension they spent the whole composition building. If you prefer your Doom/Death on the more melodic side while keeping it nice and misanthropic, then you'll want to give this a spin.