'Stratification' is an intense album. It's also really stripped down: guitar, vocals and samples are all these two dudes need to punish the fuck out of your ears for 50 minutes. Tracks start and stop very abruptly and there's no doubt they go nowhere. The sound they've captured, though, is mindblowing. The buzzing, menacing hum of guitar sound, splashed with tortured unhuman incantations is beautifully low-fi in a genre you might think necessitates high production values.

I'm sure in black metal circles it's a sin to compare Wold and Sunn O)), but when you're talking to indie kids it's forgiveable. Like them, Wold are hypnotic, otherworldly, and completely immersing. The two have pretty opposite approaches to production, but Wold are rocking the lower end so hard it's tough to pick which is better.