Whereas the band may have begun with a decidedly death metal backbone, over the past nine years they've replaced those thrash-worn vertebrae one by one, first with skeletal blocks of sludge guitars and black metal vox, and later with sanguinary dirges of translucent doom. The doom influences have culminated on _Voices of Omens_ and serve to stretch out the band's potential a bit vis a vis song arrangements. The treated, abrasive vocals are ever present, but here tend to swim through a swampy morass of guitars, sometimes rising above the tide, other times foundering.

There is also no shortage of acoustic guitar to further cement the southern gothic feel which first reared its head on _If You Walk Before You Crawl..._. This goes a long way toward offsetting any potential monotony from the heavier guitar parts, which at times are so thick they almost seem to achieve a certain aural viscosity, particularly on closing track "The Lure of Light". Here we have the most adventurous song on the album, a cavernous wall of clanging sheet metal din buoying the juggernaut rhythm through nine minutes of malefic, avantgarde formlessness. It's a nice bookend to the equally long but more stoner based rock of "The Finality". Also of note, "Of Grievous Abominations" finds the band mixing things up with some noodly, melodic soloing and the by now trademark forays into sharply foreboding acoustic interludes. Altogether a welcome addition to the elite metal ranks.