The Funeral Of Being

People will tell you that Xasthur have been on one long parabolic slide since "A Gate Through Bloodstained Mirrors", and that everything after this one just sucks. I cannot attest to that, as this one and "Nocturnal Poisoning" are the only ones I know, but I will go ahead and admit that Xasthur's third album is not as good as their second.

This is still in the same vein as "Nocturnal Poisoning" – atmospheric BM with a very even mix so that all the sounds kind of mesh together into this churning sea of hateful noise. But overall this one is not as good as its predecessor. The riffs are not as good, and the music as a whole has much less presence. While "Nocturnal Poisoning" sometimes rose up on stirring, Bathory-esque riffs, this album never really gets going, and the drum sound is so muted it verges on nonexistent, pushing the whole sound into ambient territory. Still, almost nothing else will conjure up this kind of bone-cracking frozen atmosphere, so when you are in a grim and hateful mood but you don't want anything too frantic to kill the mood, then this will be an album you'll reach for. If you want to start with a Xasthur album, get "Nocturnal Poisoning", but if you have that one and you like it, you can get this one too, as it's almost as good.