U.S. Christmas

It seems improbable that a slow, yet progressive, band such as experimental metallers U.S. Christmas would be able to offer something divergently interesting. Yet such is immediately the case with hour-plus excursion Run Thick In The Night. Kicking off with a 13-minute opener that features a strange mood via a drawn-out, plodding tone, it sets the proper pace for the album's vein of tempered, elongated, atmospheric metal. In essence, where cohorts such as Neurosis and Isis (and their myriad imitators) are about the union of extremity with ungainly weight, USX (as they're commonly referred to) prefer sentimentality focused on what the "spaces between notes" are saying rather than the chords and beats themselves. With Run Thick In The Night and its gaping holes, swirling synthesizers and acoustic guitars combating earth-shifting guitar distortion, this renders much of the album akin to the sensation of listening to Hawkwind during a particularly intense acid trip and experiencing heavy trail vision: Run Thick In The Night is the endless stream of auditory prints slowly catching up with one another. Fucking us up even more are the Band-worthy acoustic tracks ("Fire Is Sleeping" and "The Leonids") sidling up against Elevator-ish hallucinatory tunes ("Ephraim In The Stars"), creating an eerie opposition to the rest of the album's psychotic volatility.