Trafficking in pure audio oppression, French post-doom outfit Overmars are the heavy?s heavy. Their second full-length, Born Again, follows a path of bleak sludge, painting an atmosphere of horror and violence and inner turmoil with multiple vocals, male and female, screamed and clean, and a sonic reach that goes well beyond the usual smartypants would-be artistry. Into somewhere that hurts.

Born Again, manifesting aurally all the pains of the process as it happens the first time in its natural state, was originally released in 2007 by Appease Me Records, the label founded by avant black metallers Blut Aus Nord. There isn?t much sound-wise to link the two bands, but Overmars? capacity for unnervingly doomed ambience is clear from the outset, and as the different movements of the album?s lone, 39-minute track come and go, the crush they provide is obviously hewn from a variety of styles, from industrial to death to post-metal and so on. They mostly play slow, though, so for lack of a better word, we?ll call it ?doom.?

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