Across Tundras

We’ve been shitting on her for eons, but as recent catastrophes will attest, Mother Nature refuses to be take it any longer. Humankind will have an equally hard time ignoring Divides, the deafening debut by Denver’s Across Tundras. A concept piece chronicling an epic voyage across seasons, the elements and destiny itself, the disc pounds the senses with all the menace of Isis or Red Sparowes. But it isn’t all post-metal drone; the trio also summons the leaden grandeur of early Swans while shoveling Bloodrock’s Southern-fried sludge. And while the sound is vaporous in parts, muddy in others, the uneven production strangely enhances the vibe of impending doom as singer/guitarist Tanner Olson’s wrecked vocals surface and then sink in tides of textured noise. As slow and inexorably brutal as a swarm of ants devouring the carcass of a mammal, Divides is less an album than a relentless, punishing force of nature. As a wise man once said: Run for the hills.