Lair of the Minotaur – The Ultimate Destroyer

Saturday, March 4, 2006

Author: Kristofer Upjohn

Lair of the Minotaur deftly and heavily blends hard-hitting thrash structures with the deep impace of stoner/doom to cococt their smashing metal sound. Profoundly fuzzed out, distorted to doomtone destruction, dense, indestructible and unstoppable, the riffage herein is thick and like a stone fist in the head. The chunky riffage drives ahead with uberheavy freight train sock-it-to-em-ness, punch and crunch to the nth power, punishing indeed. I’m somewhat reminded of Mastodon, but as if they possessed less of the math rock and were more thrash oriented. It’s largely the production and deepness that point my brian that way. LotM’s vocal approach is solid, as well, with gritty, thick and throaty vox that match up in strength to the instrumentals. But they are often fairly understandable, which is nice. Of course, there are deathy bellows and pseudo-black metal moments in the throat department, but these add some nice dynamics and texture to the proceedings. Definitely big and badass doom metal for the stoner crowd.
7.5
Southern Lord