A Storm of Light

While A Storm of Light's debut effort, And We Wept The Black Ocean Within, was modestly interesting and received some rather strong critical praise, it appears as if the power trio are unable to follow-up that initial success on this blathering affair. Sounding like the sludge metal equivalent of Soundgarden falling even further down their hole of Black Sabbath adoration, the album meanders about, wallowing in riffs that purport to be grandiose but are really just kind of pretentious ― big and loud but entirely unmemorable. Factor in too many white noise-ish cymbal hits and forced dynamics, which reveal some Pan flute at that, and this is awash in mistaken self-importance and false promises of being epic. That is, presuming one makes it past the spoken word/banjo intro of "Alpha (Law Of Nature Pt. 1)." Seriously, guys?