The second full-length album from Denver’s Green Druid promises broader influences compared to its predecessor, 2018’s Ashen Blood. It’s certainly true to an extent as the harsher vocals pop up more frequently and a couple of segments go-between post-Rock and Death Metal, but At The Maw Of Ruin (Earache Records) ultimately keeps to a steady Stoner Doom template. Comparisons could be made to their fellow Coloradans in Khemmis as the album utilizes a similar combination of monolithic riffs, drawn-out structures, and a desolate atmosphere.
One of the biggest problems Earache Records faced in the nineties was in identifying a second-wave to follow on from their ground-breaking Death Metal and Grindcore revolutionaries; they had set an unreachable bar with their pioneers that, particularly with a rapidly moving undercurrent of a scene, continuing such a rich vein of form was nigh on impossible. Following their twenty-first century reinvention as a home par-excellence for the very best in Rock (of the Classic-tinged variety), they face a similar quandary… how do you follow-up Rival Sons, Temperance Movement, and Blackberry Smoke?
