While I may not have had any idea what the word "slovenly" means prior to hitting play on "Between Clouds and Earth", it will forevermore be synonymous with power, energy and enthusiasm. While the intro of "Livid Look on the Cross" is fairly chilled and non-committal, halfway through that same track the band's true nature shines through as the guitars roar into life along with the powerful drums, and the vocals from Florian T. fill the room.

During the first song or two, it must be said that while I admired the band's energy and willingness to charge headfirst at the song, I wasn't sure about the production or even the tune of the music. Shortly after this however, I realised that the vocal style was intentional and that while the timing of the music and its style is somewhat unusual, it is at least consistent with itself and therefore credible.

The titular track "Between Clouds and Earth" is unlike most of the others, as it has a much lower tempo and feel to it. It transitions nicely into "Am I Still Alive", where the song wastes no time in exploding into a far heavier style which is more like the rest of the album.

Being a French band, it is important to note that they sing in English. This is just about discernible; however the lyrics themselves are often hard to understand. Due to the vocal style and the general loudness of the music, this matters little however as you'll spend far more time listening to the extraordinary guitars and drums than you will the lyrics. A good example is "Black Mirror", which has a fantastic, pitch changing riff along with a wildly varying song structure. It makes for one of the absolute highlights of the album, and should not be missed.

It is easy to imagine this band playing as support to maybe TRIVIUM or OF MICE AND MEN, but there's no reason why SLOVENLY WORLD shouldn't be able to make their own name mean something, as they have all the equipment and talent to do so. My opinion of them can be summarized by the fact that I actually turned them up almost to max volume during the course of this review; something I don't do very often at all. Hear them.