Give the average industrial metal listener a million layers of atmospheric synth and a heavy death/doom riff and suddenly you’ve got their fealty, it is an uncomplicated demographic appeal. Aesthetics and atmosphere is everything and substance can be hard to dig into upon repeated listens. If Drug Honkey crawled out of that shallow pool and bonked out heavy riffs over spooky sounds, they’d probably do just fine. Yet on ‘Cloak of Skies’ they’ve clearly evolved with greater conceptions outside of sludge metal tropes laced into heavy industrial metal. They’ve incorporated a level of abrasive death metal grime amidst their echoing throb-tracks that gives just enough interest to keep me wondering what looms around every corner. The album creates the shuddering atmospherics of an exploded and bubbling nuclear disaster, an industrial wasteland of smoking pools, crackling live wires, and hissing green-eyed creatures.

The effects-laden vocals of Honkey Head himself never really stretch outside of early Broadrick palette in terms of voicing and arrangement, and as such this album is most palatable to serious industrial metal fans. If you’ve yearned for the heaviness of ‘Streetcleaner’ but the obscured insanity of something like Slushy’s ‘Penge’ you’ll likely find something to enjoy here. Finding anything to compare to Drug Honkey can only further point out my lack of knowledge in terms of underground industrial metal and I would suggest that the excess and clangor of 90’s industrial serves as the major influence in this music. Anyone who was drawn to this band because of the doom/death label it is often given might feel deceived as what ‘Cloak of Skies’ really channels is atmospheric sludge metal and industrial with some harsh vocal moments.

The build-up and release of “(It’s Not) The Way” that leads into the massive ten minute “The Oblivion of an Opiate Nod” are what I’d consider the peak of the record that best expresses the band’s sound and vision. The gurgling vocals and trudging atmospherics almost literally collide between the two songs into a very unique mixture of sound collage, atmospherics and demented sludge metal. I only feel willed to compliment the ambition and atmosphere of this record as it certainly creates a mood and a tone that is otherworldly but it never does anything I find memorable outside of my own feelings. After 50 minutes of listening I’m left a yellowed skeleton floating in toxic waste, bitterly twisted in half with a missing jaw and a jellied brain. Seemingly with all memory erased.

Vague psychedelic dissociation. 3.0/5.0