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When I see a band that claims to have Sludge to their sound, that generally tells me that they're just heavy for its own sake and have no sense of dynamic or basic songwriting outside of fuzzy thugging. Thankfully, Krakslott (a Swedish expression for a decrepit building, literally "crow castle") do a fine job avoiding that trap on their EP, The Witchhammer, and have made a serviceable album because of that.

The band unsurprisingly works in an analog fuzz for their guitar work, with a clear Sabbathine groove going on in their riffs and leads. These are accompanied by a distorted gargle that doesn't add too much drama to the songs, though they are sometimes accompanied by some gang shouts that actually help the band stand out from their peers. The riffs are adequate if not exceptional, the leads and solo work pretty good, and the band even adds some variety to their compositions that breaks them out of their usual trudging pace, like the fairly killer solo on "Ritual of Lies" and the atmospheric sections of the 11-minute title track. All that said, they do have a bad habit of repeating their riffs more than they need to, and the songs themselves tend to go on longer than they really need to. This is better than I was expecting, and fans who don't mind some Sludge in their Doom might like it more than me, but I still don't find this to be terribly compelling overall.