Greenland

Much like Big Business, Sunn 0))), Mastadon, and Boris, the Columbus, Ohio, trio Teeth of the Hydra graduated from Melvins University and majored in doom-sludge. “Sawing Through the Ice” is an apt title for the opening song of the band’s sophomore album, Greenland. Frontman and guitarist Matt Miner cuts out big serrated riffs with a hard-tempered edge over a heavy, jackhammering rhythm section. He doesn’t even sing until more than two minutes into the jam. But as each song unfolds, it’s evident that Greenland is also a concept album musing on the hardscrabble life of Arctic survival. Armed with producer Sanford Parker (Pelican, Unearthly Trance, Buried at Sea, etc.), the band makes the following “Our Strange Man” a hard-throttled standout, dabbling in the kind of melodic black metal that’s fit for modern Vikings. The album’s doomy epic is “The Garden of Rotten Teeth,” a Sabbathesque head-nodder that stretches out past the 11-minute mark with lumbering tempos, brontosaurus guitar distortion, and Miner dialing back his howls for a sinister vocal style that recalls a young Bobby Liebling.