A-side "Eight Letters" comes on friehgt-truck style, a flurry of bone-bashing drum rolls and gnarly distortion right before Dove quickly recombine into a fuckin' massive sludge-metal riff, somewhat akin to the early Sleep stuff but with that recognizeable bellowing vocal style that marked the early Floor releases. It's more churn than drone, a punchy chorus rising up and down out of the halting riffing, slamming your skull into the mulch for ahile before it disintegrates intp a wall of feedbak, out of which comes an unexpected pretty guitar melody. This tune really reminds me of the early, rougherr Floor stuff with its killer contrast between earthmover slo-mo power and gentle melody. The whole latter half od this song has an almost Codeine-like majesty to it, these guys some of the few musicians who were able to tap into that unioque style and feel. The ending of "Letters" is achingly beautiful, tapping into something strange, a nostlagic glow that wraps around you in a vast, fuzz-filled blanket of sound.

They go a little harder on the flip "What Is Best In Life", the title of which should resonate with any of you Conan-fanatics out there. It's more of a knuckledragger of Sabbathian-style minimalism and crushing downtuned angst - nothin' drowsy or doped-out with this, the guitars are set in comncrete, those awesome gang voccals howling over the slithering six-ton groove, while still winding some of those signature arpgeggiated chords around the calmer moments, combining chorus-drenched mega-crunch with that monumental melodic pull. Epic. It's a cosmic tragefy that these didn't bloom into an entire album.