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Volition hail from the sunny climes(!) of Barrow-in-Furness, forming in 2005 to rumble out some dirty down-tempo Doom/Death metal. Earlier this year, they released this self-titled debut album after only a short two track demo/promo to their name previously (the demo that got them signed with Total Rust Music, in fact).

Opening with 'To Those We Have Lost', the bowel-shakingly heavy guitars crash and boom from your speakers, similar in timbre and texture to the devastating tones of Winter or Grief. The sludgy guitars shudder their way through each track with reckless intent, crashing out intermittently alongside the thunderous bass and sharp drum hits that crack and pop to form a rough skeleton of rhythm shaping the basis of the bands sound. Vocally, Dave Hodge has a bellowing growl which encapsulates the coldness of the darkest emotions, occasionally mixing in a higher gut-wrenching scream that really strengthens the feeling of breaking every chain, plunging the primitive overtones to a sickening new depth. There's also the occasional riff that reminds me of German Doom beasts Worship, though only for a brief period in a couple of tracks ("Cheyne Stoking" in particular comes to mind) utilizing a second guitar to overlay a simple melody over the waves of oceanic rhythm guitar. Don't be fooled into thinking this could be labeled as Funeral Doom though, as this is certainly more shit caked and filth ensconced — you can almost hear the crumbling crust shedding from the mammoth steel rope-like guitar strings with ever chord struck.

It's plain to see that Volition have set out to drown you in an aural tar pit of musical despondency, and once you've sat through the albums' hour run time, you'd be lying if you believed that they hadn't succeeded with flying colors... (those colors being grey, grey and more grey naturally).

Desperation has never sounded so enjoyable.