It's hardly been a case of overnight success, but 2006's arguably confirms the arrival of , and its one-man mastermind, , as one of America's -- indeed the world's -- most respected and prolific visionaries. Stoking the fires of Hell, the aptly named instrumental makes for a brief but ominous introduction into the absolute leviathan that is ; an utterly devastating maelstrom of a song that advances with the inexorable terror of a cyclone, while unleashing what most acolytes agree is 's secret weapon: his petrifying, spine-tingling howl. Over the course of 12 mesmerizing minutes, the track covers so much ground that one wouldn't begrudge had he packed up his corpse-paint and blood-spattered briefcase and headed home for the night when it was done. But instead, only delves ever deeper into the murkier depths of so-called "kvlt" by means of several gloomy instrumentals ( ) and a series of low-fidelity epics ( and the title track), so crude, decrepit and inaccessible, that it may sound like some kind of recording mistake to unprepared listeners. All of it is very much intentional, though, and, after spending over an hour trapped inside the pitch-black, claustrophobic vacuum of 's sepulchral edifice, it's also quite understandable if many listeners decide they prefer 's mercifully shorter mini-releases. In fact, these raw and decaying sounds may prove too much, even for serious enthusiasts to see through to the sophisticated and inspired songwriting contained within. Whatever the case, their very extremity is what has led some critics to suggest that American acts like are overtaking the long reigning Scandinavians (most of whom are stagnant or progressing beyond the genre's boundaries in the early '00s) at the outermost reaches of innovation. Maybe Hell has frozen over. ~ Eduardo Rivadavia