They say that you should never judge a book by its cover. That goes double for records.

Because if you were to look at the pastoral winter scene, gentle cursive text, and whimsical animal illustrations on the inside gatefold, you might think this would sound like a gorgeous, twee-folk Bon Iver clone.

And while this record certainly is gorgeous, it’s beauty comes through Mouth of the Architect’s particular brand of crushing sludge metal heaviness.

If you’ve been following this blog for almost any length of time, then you’re already familiar with my deep bias toward crushing, lurching, atmospheric, melodic heavy metal.

And few things check all of those boxes like Mouth of the Architect’s 2008 masterpiece Quietly.

This record almost reads like a collection of every sludge and post metal trope around.

Most of the songs are longer than seven minutes. The tempo rarely breaks past 80 beats per minute. Guitar tones are twisted through layers of distortion and reverb while the vocals are delivered in a passionate roar. Movie dialogue is sampled over instrumental passages. Its heaviness is tempered with a stunningly beautiful atmospheric sensibility.

It’s all pretty textbook ISIS worship. But it’s completely satisfying. And with so few bands itching that ever-persistent scratch in my life (despite the hundreds that try), it’s a rare thing to find a band that uses that uses the same formula so successfully.

And for all of its tarry sludge, if I were to describe this record in a single word, it would be “gorgeous” (like I’ve already used a few times).

“Quietly” opens the record with gentle vibraphone tones before exploding into a thick wall of amp-bursting guitars and plodding drums. “Hate and Heartache” broods with an ambient guitar line under a newscaster inciting his viewers to get mad, which heralds another crash of sludge. “Generation of Ghosts” enlists Julie Christmas’ stunning alto as a counterpoint to lead vocalist Jason Watkin’s raw-throated screams. “Rocking Chairs and Shotguns” opens with cascading delayed guitars, exploding with the entire band performing vocals as a multitude, delivering the lyrics with both clean vocals and screams, building through layers of guitars and grooving rhythms until climaxing with the closest thing to a mosh pit anthem Mouth of the Architect has offered. The two minute “Medicine” is a delicate interlude played on electric piano, a welcome deep breath before the skull-crushing closer that is “A Beautiful Corpse.”

Though it offers fifty-five minutes of thick, dense sludge, Quietly feels relatively swift. It’s the type of hypnotic heaviness that is best suited to loud volumes and zoning out. Equal parts devastating and beautiful, not entirely unlike a forest fire. Beautiful, awe-inspiring, and inescapable.