Canadian sludge metal quartet
Bison B.C.'s debut disc, Earthbound, was released on a tiny label and reached virtually no one outside their home country. Fortunately for them, someone at Metal Blade Records heard it, and signed the group. This sophomore release packs a lot of chugging power, slobbering and stampeding at the listener like their namesake animal and offering some moments of pure hard rock glory (the bass break on "Slow Hand of Death," for one) that will almost certainly inspire the majority of listeners to headbang furiously. They've got a softer side, too, sort of; sometimes they get atmospheric, as on the string intro to the
High on Fire-ish "Wendigo, Pt. 1: Quest for Fire," and it only serves to make the inevitable displays of skull-punishing riffage that much more awesome. Comparisons to
Mastodon (named for a big mammal, specializing in crushing riffs with occasional arpeggiated adornments, broadminded lyrical subject matter) are inevitable but not totally apt. The most obvious difference is that
Bison's drummer, Brad MacKinnon, is much less hyperactive than
Mastodon's
Brann Dailor. Still, if one were to play this album alongside
Mastodon's
Remission, the similarities would quickly become hard to ignore. But it rocks, so what the hell, right? ~ Phil Freeman