What I like most about Akimbo is their inability to sound typical, and that�s prevalent throughout Forging Steel and Laying Stone. �Dangerousness,� �Tina, Bring Me That Axe,� and �Sci Fi Monster Violence� have the jackhammer rhythms of The Jesus Lizard by way of Mastodon � angular, pummeling, and propelled by an off-kilter forward momentum. When they pull back, there�s an undercurrent of melody (think Fugazi) that contrasts perfectly with the hoarse, barked vocals and heavy rhythms.

Seattle's own Burke, Jon, and Nat are back, with a freshly-honed, serrated-edge, sludge-melange. Elephantine, which ended on the truly monstrous "I'm a Fucking Ice Giant," helped prepare the fans for the twelve tracks on Forging Steel and Laying Stone. Here the band seems to truly be transmutating the maelstrom of their malicious, yet hilarious live shows into recorded output. You can't see their faces twisting and the crowd spilling out all around them, but the cascading riffs, incessant screams, and super fast fills can be experienced for their cinematic intensity this way.

Jon confessed that he had sweet nostalgia for Devo, and somehow his onerous bass playing is just as mechanical and mutated as that group (sort of, in a way). Burke's guitar playing has a nice sleazy '70s edge to it, in the middle of all the threshing, with some surprisingly sensual textures, not all of them atonal. And Nat just sounds like a fucking mastodon all over his kit. Who can resist an album that slides from a sinus-splitting skull-crusher like "Precious Moments" into a prostate-pounding nut-masher like "Maximillian: Jungle Warrior"?

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