Caustic tones are the order of the day on Winter Hours. Tracks like “Filled With Secrets” are brash and excoriating with very little in the way of mercy for your eardrums. “Merrimack” is a departure of sorts, using smoother tones to invoke a Jesu/Isis feel. In fact, a lot of the quieter moments on Winter Hours recall Justin Broderick, especially the end of “Filled With Secrets”. It sets up the epic “Seven Stars The Angel Of Death” like a jab to your chest setting up a right cross to your face, but you’ll like it anyway. While Winter Hours is staunchly abrasive, if you listen closely, there are definite filigrees of melody throughout. Little sonic oases like “The Great Silence” offer small periods of respite with clean guitar and more atmospheric tones, but this is not a record for the faint of heart. Winter Hours is definitely not going to be the soundtrack for your next holiday gathering. Unless you’re perhaps a member of the Manson family.

The eight songs that comprise Spoils Of Failure have no formal names, save for the Roman numerals that denote their order. Each track displays the musicianship we have come to expect from bands like Isis and Pelican, with guitarists Andrew Tweedy and Emmanuel Sayer playing off each other nicely. Both are equally adept at playing textural parts or soaring lead lines and it’s that ability to play ripping single note parts over the pummeling onslaught that bedrocks Spoils Of Failure that sets Buried Inside apart from the death-grunting masses. Three out of the five players do vocals, although the lion’s share is handed by sound manipulator Nick Shaw. Rest assured, genre purists: Spoils of Failure features no Halfordian hi-jinks, just throat-shredding vocals in the lower register with the odd errant wander into the world of melody.

It’s been four years since their Relapse debut, but Buried Inside has not been idle in that time. Few bands have lasted as long or progressed as much with each release. Their Ottawa bailiwick puts them in the same camp of bands like Germany’s equally stunning Daturah that don’t see much of a presence stateside, but this record is well worth searching out. If you like your metal progressive musically as well as politically, the Spoils Of Failure may very well be your gain.