Eagle Twin - The Thundering Heard

Since their debut full-length The Unkindness of Crows in 2009, Eagle Twin has quietly been one of my favorite bands.  ...Crows was like nothing I had ever heard when it came out; the band's shamanistic take on doom is weird and adventurous in a way that too little music is.  That weirdness was somehow pushed even further on The Feather Tipped the Serpent's Scale, the band's 2012 follow up, resulting in an album that still rewards listens with the discovery of something new.  Now, six years later, Eagle Twin has returned with The Thundering Heard (Songs of Hoof and Horn); after such a lengthy slumber, can Eagle Twin muster the same thundering weirdness that made them so hypnotically intoxicating?

The Ditch and the Delta - Hives in Decline

As I was perusing the ol' Töp inbox the other day, looking for promos, I came across a band described as an "exploratory sludge/math metal trio."  Suffice it to say my trousers became a smidge tighter at that combination of words, and so I downloaded the debut album from Salt Lake City's The Ditch and the Delta, Hives in Decline.  Was my semi-chub, brought on by musically erotic thoughts of an Eagle Twin/Dillinger Escape Plan sex scene, brought to full mast?  Or would I be left with doomy blue balls?