Under the Ancient Penalty (CD - 2006)

Recording information: Sapone Studios, Bethpage, NY.

Despite its prevalence throughout the Southeastern states, and particularly in the New Orleans area (hence its becoming described as the "NOLA sound"), sludge/doom metal never really took hold across the rest of America; meaning that a sludge metal band like New York's Negative Reaction remains a local treasure, at best -- an isolated and misunderstood anomaly doomed (forgive the pun) to failure, at worst. Under the Ancient Penalty is the trio's fourth full-length studio album in a decade-plus career, and, whatever its eventual success rate, it sure makes a helluva statement for extremely crusty, torpid sludge in its most primal, uncompromising, and unforgiving state. Listening to band founder and ever-present leader Ken E. Bones lead his henchmen through foot-dragging, Eyehategod-inspired sludge-fests like "Lost," "Empty," and "Alone," it's impossible to decide which instrument conveys the greatest amount of pain: his tortured, high-pitched whine, or his molten magma de-tuned guitar chords -- both of which suggest a very unhappy individual, in any case. Give the guy credit for not mincing words or abusing metaphors when it comes to those song titles, though, as these also include such monuments to directness in lyric writing as "Loathing" and album standouts "Suffer" and "Pain" (boy, didn't you see that title coming?), both of which, ironically represent the album's most energized, pulse-registering moments. Even so, manic depressives will be happy to know that even the latter never really threatens to lift the pall of negativity hanging over the entire album, so if it's true that "misery loves company," they'll be jumping off cliffs like lemmings to the soundtrack of Negative Reaction. ~ Eduardo Rivadavia minimize