The Monuments of Ash & Bone

This is a blackened doom/sludge/hardcore album that doesn’t sound as bad as the combination may hint at. It’s quite doomy with harsh vocals for the most part—the few clean vocals are kind of depressing and kind of break the mood. There are slow, doomy numbers here, but it’s really the faster songs that I found most enjoyable as Wolvhammer are pretty good at that stuff. The slower, more melodic and doomy songs are also quite good and it’s really when the occasional clean vocals kick in that they lose me. Reminds me a bit of some Opeth material, and not in a good way. Despite the few low points, The Monuments of Ash & Bone shines when the band just plows ahead and stick more to the black metal side of things. An uneven, but interesting album with more than a few catchy bits.