A synth heavy creep fest, a one-man black metal show and a circuit eating screamer all in one, Josh Lay brings the demented stuff right to your front door. It doesn’t rely on the volume or feedback of some power electronics joint, but is more interested in the graveyard type of atmospheres. It’s dripping in its black metal influence and fidelity, half of “Behind the Mask” sounds like the music is being played on a one-speaker boombox in another room.

Lay likes what he likes, and he likes the gnarly dark stuff and wants to combine it all on this disc. He pulls it off too, without wading in too deep and combining his influences in subtle ways. Although the influences are not as divergent as some folks, that doesn’t mean it’s a narrow concept record. “Human Skin” has about four solid minutes of loopy guitar riffing that isn’t evil sounding until the bleeding vocals start. The churn of electronics competes with the vocals more than the guitar, but it all sounds pretty balanced. This is ugly and awesome and worth checking out. 8/10 -- Andrew Murdock Livingston (19 November, 2009)