I dig these guys and the overall vibe they let off, the Portland band playing a sludged out take on ugly-dude trad metal, sort of like High On Fire with shirts on and a slightly cragglier worldview. Their second album is concise (37 minutes) and rocks a very awesome sounding production (those drums just hit hard on headphones) and is wrapped up in cool artwork; everything's here, and where Relapse bands Tombs, Black Anvil, and Red Fang always get me excited and then always, unexplainably, let me down (and man, that frustrates me), Lord Dying delivers: smart metal that rocks hard and hits in both the brain and the chest, although there's not much academic happening in Lord Dying's songs, the drums just pummeling (see "The Clearing At The End Of The Path", which also smokes with riffs and songwriting skills, as does the huge "An Open Sore"), the riffs and vocals positively old-school Crowbarian at times, the whole package just adding up right, the occasional foray into speedier tunes, like the absurdly titled "Suckling At The Teat Of A She-Beast", helping to break up the monotony inherent in the band's sound, one of the few things working against Lord Dying, although even that song battles being dragged back down into the swamps. Damn... the more I listen to this satisfying monster of a record the more I dig it. Buy me a beer in a month to find out if it's gone up to a 9.0 or not.