Product Review

With its full length debut, SPAWNING THE NEPHILIM, Chicago's blackened sludge tribe LORD MANTIS rips open a portal to hell and leads a thundering 35-minute descent.

Spiralling downward, charging toward oblivion, the Mantis delivers a "bludgeoning sound" with "an extra layer of darkness," in the words of the UK's ROCK SOUND.

SPAWNING THE NEPHILIM embraces hell and wallows in it - a sounds akin to Today Is The Day, Zeni Geva, Neurosis and even Immolation.