Like fellow Texans Averse Sefira, Crimson Massacre evinces a Miltonian aesthetic of hell and the fallen angels, carried out through the lyrics, and consequently their treble roaring underworld production adding a molten hum to each track. An inelegant, mathcore-like reliance on discordance provokes a kind of numbness, but is not beyond grasp or memory either. In a sense it represents a stylish reclamation from the indie crop of musicians that decline to really acknowledge the genre; a place where Comity and Deicide meet and the former is mercilessly purged of its irony.

While composed of a shattered parlance, it does become less enigmatic through each listen, not quite relinquishing substance for petty flair and clinic. And there is nothing devoid of mood, even if that mood remains constantly inflamed. Well, almost. Bent as it appears on fist-fucking convention, _TLoP_ offers an eleven minute reprieve via an acoustic instrumental right in the middle of everything. It's hard to interpret the actual purpose of that, coming across as the most over-indulgent work in the whole set. Doleful, with almost heroic shades of wandering, it continues long after any (confined) utility. But while displaying a certain self-interest, none of this comes without truly capturing the essence of conflict. Fending off stasis with horns, it is impossible to abandon interest from each all but subtle puncture. In conquering each moment on record (and at times the band seems close to unraveling mid-song, left behind in their own zeal), Crimson Massacre have crossed the Rubicon with this polarizing but essentially definitive album.