Brown Jenkins

Another one-man, depressive black/doom project (which is rapidly becoming a genre in itself), the oddly named Brown Jenkins has some sweltering, claustrophobic production, and a certain Lovecraft-ian ambience, yet grows tired quickly. The riffs are repetitious to the point of monotony, and the programmed drums fail to bring anything interesting to the songs. Even when compared with similarly lethargic releases from Xasthur, Catacombs and other better groups this is near coma inducing. The guitar tone is nauseatingly heavy and stands as the strongest aspect of the disc — a perfect melding of warbling buzz and funereal crunch. Other than that, there is unfortunately not much to recommend here, although fleshing out the melodic elements and relying less on numbing repetition could lead to an improved follow-up.