✦✦✦✧ On this album, He Is Legend have ratcheted up both their cheese and their heaviness. Their long-documented similarities with Alice In Chains are less glaring now, crowded out by hints of Converge, Mutoid Man, and Entombed. The band continue to be both a guilty pleasure and an under-discovered gem. One of the most unique sounding albums of 2019, even if it sounds like it’s straight out of 2004.

✦✦✦✧ So much swagger! The band have expanded their already unique sonic palette since 2014’s “Heavy Fruit” (although it’s still hard to avoid thinking about modern-era Alice In Chains). The result is more surefooted, more convincingly emotional, and at times far more metallic than anything they’ve done before. Also, holy crap: they’ve got a song called “Fritz The Dog“!

★★★☆ This album lives in a sweet spot halfway between The Melvins and Alice In Chains, but the end result is better than you could expect from that kind of description. Full of dark swagger, it’s an unusual record, and one that rewards a careful listen. You might not bang your head, but you’ll certainly snarl along when you listen to it.