Going by the lyrics of Abyssal Gigantism, New York sludge/doom outfit God Ox’s full-length debut, it’s pretty clear someone in the band has studied theology in either a formal or informal setting. My money’s on vocalist War Ox, who’s responsible for the lyrics, and who references St. Augustine and John Scotus Eriugena by name and makes numerous other references to Christian mythology throughout Abyssal Gigantism’s six tracks. Amidst heavy, lumbering stoner riffage, eye-reddening bass and cymbal crash, War Ox spews lines like “Like a Manichean I believe that evil has an equal place,” on “Pestilent Dogmata,” speaking to at least a more than passing interest in his subject matter. The heathen twist is that the god in question is, as the name of the band would suggest, an ox. One has to wonder if it’s some reference to Christianity’s pagan beginnings or just needling believers and having a little fun. Maybe a bit of both.

But for the shorter “Ox Flu Zombie Apocalypse” – probably the only cut on Abyssal Gigantism not theologically relevant unless you want to make some plague-as-apocalypse interpretation of “Spread the oxfection while I feast on brain,” which I guess you could if you really felt like it – and “Pestilent Dogmata,” every song is over seven minutes long, and God Ox, whose double-guitars provide ample thickness to the chugging verse riff of “Priest Infection,” tend to make the most of their time. The album has a basic feel to it (doubtless the thematic heft takes up some of the sonic room), but the neither the arrangements nor the riffs themselves are simple. Guitarists Frost Ox and Axe Ox (aka Captain Riffwright) contort otherwise straightforward structures much the same way War Ox has deified the cattle from whence he, the band and all of his bandmates take their names. In closer “The Ontological Argument for the Existence of Lord God Ox,” tempo changes and interplay between the guitars and the rhythm section of Beast Ox (bass) and Myth Ox (drums) caps Abyssal Gigantism in noisy ultra-doomed fashion.

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