The psychedelic fractal skies of ‘Metempsychosis’ are nothing more than an Anglerfish-like lure to Nest’s monstrous, hideous sludgescapes. Nest’s bad acid trip harnesses it’s own vision of ‘the fear’ to weaponize a fine 35 minutes of brutally introspective, darkly psychedelic sludge metal. Distorted scowling voices hiss and grunt like an apex primate atop a fresh kill, exerting chest-pounding dominance with shrieking overdriven fuzz-worthy down-tuned guitars and sewer echoing distorted basslines that form a webbed mesh as they finally meld… wait, there is no bassist? The riffs are wall-scratchingly cranked and loom over layers of gravewax-slicked distorted mush as they slime their way into The Body-like drain circling harsh noise panic. The experience is ensorcelled further with atmospherically deft use of sonic feedback, psych-doom noodling and crackling tape noise. You are lost, you are lit, and you are being hunted by an electromagnetic pulsing alien and the soundtrack is fittingly ‘Metempsychosis’.

The distortion is cranked to such a level that it slightly hinders the nuance of the guitar work and the trade off is a generally extreme metal sound that captures the desperation of old school sludge metal. Beneath the tinfoil chewing tone of the guitars is a set of strong and stylized sludge guitar-driven tracks that generally value groaning grooves before doom fuckery. When the doom riffs do pop up, they’re brilliantly transformative in terms of Nest’s sound. “Life’s Grief” in particular starts out with a big sweaty bong-kicker of a doom intro, that brief moment of cohesion is fleetingly moving and a sweet tap on the shoulder to reengage the listener. The leads that kick in here and there across are soul-drillingly engaging but largely serve as cleaner seances between the baritone grinding stomps that anchor ‘Metempsychosis’.

Though the short-circuited snowblower guitar sound casts an appropriate grime upon Nest’s sound, the cleaner, quieter moments are often more memorable than the actual blackened sludge-doom of its meatiness. As much as sludge doesn’t need more atmospheric bands tracks like “From the Darkness in me, Illuminate” reinforce the idea that Nest have some excellent ideas pertaining to dark ambient noise and atmospheric rock influences in sludge metal. This project is recommended if you felt like Fistula was too hardcorish, or Thou was too slow, or Khanate needed a big ballsy doom riff or two more.

 Only to find grief again. 4.0/5.0

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