Artist: Cough / Windhand
Album: Reflection of the Negative
Genre: Doom metal, Sludge, Psych, Stoner Metal
RIYL: Neurosis, Down
Richmond, Virginia’s twin titans of doom team up for the split album of the year with ‘Reflection Of The Negative’. Cough delivers a typically electrifying one song down-tuned epic side, while Windhand serves up two brand new songs for their half of the dirge.
[Impenetrable Walls of Sludge]
FCC clean

***1. Amaranth (7.25)- Distorted/echoed effects fade in followed by slow-tempoed guitar with droning/mourning vox; down-tuned lushly plump riffs; bleak and gloomy; spooky and psychedelic, with tremors of backwoods horror reverberating within the band’s riff-and-rhythm lockstep
**2. Athame (18.31)- a track of pacing and structure; adds and removes elements like a creaking organ, spliced movie samples, and shrieking second guitar to maintain intrigue without seeming impatient; creeping vox crawls inside of the amplifier wall; a menacing tumult.
***3. Shepherd’s Crook (10.46)- frightening and belligerent; thoroughly massive, psychedelic sludge; scrambled guitars revealing the layers slowly and in an unexpected order; at points warped and hallucinogenic.