Darkly Emotive
The dark and sludgy opening to Fox Ears and Silence makes your skin prickle and marks the start of a record with a nasty tone - verging on discordant at times this opening track takes you by surprise by mixing in some beautifully melodic and dreamy moments too as well as a blend of manic screams and softly sung, clean and emotive vocals - it's an approach that works for the most part - occasionally you will sink in to one or the other before being pulled the other way and out of your reverie, generally though its pretty effective.
On the whole, this is an album motivated by emotion - the band's obvious love for their music and our reaction to their richly layered (sometimes post-rock esque) doomy builds and the intense pounding of drums and battering of heavy duty and super low riffage which totally envelopes you. The beautifully judged melodic rushes counteract the screams and discord - even sounding off kilter and discordant themselves at times, but in a skin tingling way, the six odd minute Wither is a great example. This is obviously a very serious record - the almost sombre tone and straight up vocal delivery drip intent but that only serves to make things more intense and leaves you feeling raw and drained at the end of the album, from my point of view that's no bad thing.
A serious and dark record no doubt, but Though I'm Alone is also full of beautiful and touching moments - seek out the raw chiming guitar and clean but emotion filled vocals of Clawhold for instance. This combination makes for an intense and interesting mix that keeps you coming back for more.