On their only EP to date, Eibon (Aesthetic Death), the Paris four-piece of the same name craft a brutally sludge-filled sound that runs utterly contradictory to every Francophiliac impression I?ve ever had of their home city. Because they play sludge and because vocalist Georges Balafas is a phlegmy screamer whose voice is well-suited to the lumbering riffs of guitarist Max Hedin, someone is bound to compare them to Eyehategod, but the two tracks included here, ?Asleep and Threatening? and ?Staring at the Abyss,? are far more atmospheric and not nearly as raw-sounding. There?s more happening here than Bower-powered riffs and Southern-fried nihilism.

Each of the two songs is over 10 minutes long, and Eibon gives a credible showing of diversity within the doom/sludge realm. Hedin, bassist St?phane Rivi?re and drummer Jerome Lachaud all used to be in Horrors of the Black Museum, and Balafas? past in Drowning shows through in some of his deeper growls, despite his generally keeping things in a mid-register rasp that comes off like a differently applied version of Darkest Hour?s John Henry?s indecipherability. By that I mean I don?t have a god damn clue what he?s saying, but it sounds like it?s hurting him an awful lot to say it.

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