Black Roller Crop Rotation [2009] Prayers From The Rotten Soil

When Ben Fleury-Steiner from Light Of Shipwreck told me a few months ago that he had a new "metal" project, I wasn't sure what the hell to expect. A much heavier version of Light Of Shipwreck's percussive dronescapes, maybe? Whatever notion had entered my mind, it sure wasn't the hideous industrial-scum hell that he unleashed on my brain with this bitching new disc from his band Black Roller Crop Rotation. Ben ( bass, guitar, drum machines, samples, and vocals) teams up with Jeffrey Bumiller (guitar, vocals) for this five track saga that evokes images of behemoth all-consuming duststorms, yellowed fields scorched by vicious drought, and towns swallowed up by monstrous clouds of swirling, obliterating blackness, a Depression-era apocalyptic nightmare scored by this heaving slow-motion industrial blackdoom monstrosity. There are parts of this disc that reminded me of a drug-blasted jam session between Abruptum and Popul Vuh, blackened wordless howls and gutteral profanity slurred across shapeless detuned riffage, mechanical, almost pneumatic percussion, and thick ropey jets of obsidian synthesizer that roar across the barren wastelands and suffocating ambience of Prayers From The Rotten Soil...