When you come from the US Pacific Northwest and play any combination of black metal, sludge or drone, you'd better be able to bring your shit, that area being pretty much Ground Zero for a certain vanguard of extreme metal equally informed by Earth, The Melvins and Wolves of the Throne Room. Trees are hip to this fact. Lumbering, elephantine riffs echo atop cavernous cymbal crashes on both of _Freed of This Flesh_'s generously epic tracks. At close to fifteen minutes apiece, it's apparent that Trees are a "stop and smell the black roses" type of band. An aural rot meltdown of no bullshit sagacity, _Freed_ seethes with the foreboding implications of an arctic ice shelf slowly crumbling apart.There's really little point in a song-by-song (both? really?) description since -- at less than a half hour total -- both "Hollow" and "Ashes" could have been blended seamlessly into one track with no ill effect, but suffice to say there is an ominous consistency in the nose-to-tail drone of yawning riffs, tortured black metal vocals and extremely deliberate percussion. Don't look now, but I think Trees done brought their shit.