Seven Sisters of Sleep

The debut effort by California's eerily named Seven Sisters of Sleep behaves like an elusive moving target for those who would peg the band into any particular, handy metallic genre. The easy way out is to proclaim that, for the most part, their songs strike a compelling balance between sludge, stoner metal, and doom, forging tracks like "Monasteries," "Passed Out Standing," and Beirut" into sinful, crust-doom arias praising the world's decay and imminent demise; may the last hesher standing please turn out the light. But then there's a distinctly divergent facet to the band's sound that sees significantly sprightlier fare like "Tide Is Rising," "CCEC," and "Swamp" breaking out its hardcore influences and energized tempos to match, as it rumbles down the slope like an inexorable muddy avalanche. Through all these songs and slight variations, the one reliable constant is the intensity with which Seven Sisters of Sleep tackle one and all, due in large part to a preternaturally peeved frontman with an axe to grind. So if anything is certain, it's that even short attention spans will be held fast by this group's promising first stab.