Chico, California based quintet COLD BLUE MOUNTAIN is one of those bands that incorporate so many different elements and dynamic facets to their style, they are very hard to pin down. On their second full length "Old Blood", you'll get 5 songs that sometimes travel into Sludge/ Doom Metal territory, then twist into Post-Metal or Alternative textures.

Vocalist Brandon Squyres lives for the bone crunching screams, the ones that haunt your worst nightmares and keep COLD BLUE MOUNTAIN away from any sort of commercial viability - which I believe is fine by them. His musical companions unleash a firestorm of slower Doom tempos, riffs that crawl out of the mire of Earth and just signal caustic chaos for ample channeling of your emotions. If names like ISIS, CAVE IN, and COMPRESSION mean anything to you - along with a touch of that NEUROSIS vibe, than I think these 5 songs should gain major airplay in whichever listening device you may choose to consume this material.

"Seed of Dissent" and "Retreat" may open on a quieter, Post-Metal note in terms of the clean, echoing guitar lines, but soon the Doom/ Sludge parts kick in and you once again succumb to the heaviness, the atmosphere, and the general sense of gloom that will carry you through to the next track. Given that "Old Blood" is my first exposure to this five-piece, I would say they possess remarkable talent in a genre that can be hard to make headway in. The band know how to insert the right change or when to just ride a riff into the sunset - all the while eliciting chills and smoke from the haze.

COLD BLUE MOUNTAIN is a great band moniker, and an act that I will be intrigued to see develop over the coming years.<