Wretched step by wretched step, Ignominious Incarceration have created a supreme being. The cover-art alone is one of the fiercest invitations that I have ever received. It's what it implies (as opposed to depicting real-time torture tactics and debauchery) that leaves me with no doubt in my mind that the image of this iron-clad Goliath alongside his two faithful puppies, fueled by an unfathomable determination to take everything the fuck over, was the muse for the warring factions just underneath. Of Winter Born has struck on some kind of twisted bliss, the chewy center right smack-dab in the middle of a Deicide-like tire-iron resolution and the forward-thinking alchemy of something like an Anata, or a Decapitated, or a (insert your favorite nimble-fingered death metal band here). Chances are that II are hot on the hooves of what you and I consider to have mainstay appeal. Yes, I will actually go on record as having spoken for you, and then I will remove the shirt from my back, approach the slave stick, and smile all the while.

On the surface, Winter's temperature and concentration is cold and calculated, but at the dead heart of it, it is not calculus; I can still wrap my head around it as it teeter-totters between the trivial and the rudimentary. Bottom line: It's the most honest-to-god threat that I've heard in quite some time, and at ten songs in thirty-five minutes, it can easily be turned into twenty in seventy without a second thought, with even a nod toward a third consecutive spin. This just happens to be my kinda album, my kinda debut album; all sharp teeth, sharp claws, salivating into the fabric from which the entire album is woven. However, I do like some songs more than others. I am measuring this collection in terms of which sections of which songs do guitarists Steven Brown and Danny Guy actually sound like their fingers are tripping over themselves hardest, and just falling off of the fretboard entirely. That reads like a disaster, but sounds like a sweet, sweet choir of collision. It is this welcome infusion of dissonant warmth that brings to mind the genius of Anata, and it is something that I do not hear often because of the amount of skill that it takes to dance on those strings and the lack of said skill amongst freshmen. I like how easily it separates kids from bigger kids. The line in the dirt is drawn to this Ignominious playlist:

"Deeds Of Days Long Gone" - I never said that II were purveyors. There's often a door waiting to be opened inside each of these tunes and it is this track specifically that happens to be a prime example of when melody melts with malaise. Slightly across the halfway point, there is the conflict and the resolve in a matter of about fifteen seconds. Seek it.

"Of Winter Born" - Ride some acute angles with me in the span of two-and-a-half minutes. Accept the added bonus of a tipsy chant-along in a surprising post-chorus maneuver (which might actually sound alcohol-influenced enough to feel at home on an Alestorm cut believe it or not), and then hear the signature Steven/Danny pick-parade twist it.

"Damnation Dynasty" - Simply because I've gotten hooked on these unexpected little finger-tapped explosions that will surely help carry them above and beyond the burp and fart piles of DM out there should they lock it down. Sit tight for the fiftieth second when the higher notes try to flail their way out from in between the confines of a galloping picking pattern; a jailbreak scenario as seen from a fret's perspective.

If the mouth is the music, and the children are its teeth, then the United Kingdom's attempt to swallow the earth whole this year is working. Big ups to Scott Atkins (producer; Sylosis, Gama Bomb) for helping Ignominious Incarceration push vomit through a strainer, and then have it come out edible on the other side. Quite a dish, ladies and gentlemen, quite a dish.