Pushing doom metal’s expansive boundaries to the outer limits, Birushanah present a three-track, forty-minute excursion of crushing sonic excess. This Japanese unit embraces its roots wholeheartedly, intertwining native instrumentation (fretless bass and crashing cymbals) with drone metal rhythms, a frenetic multi-percussive assault (whose output includes everything from pounding drums to what sounds like sheets of metal), and a maniacally warped vocal delivery leading the off-kilter charge.  AKAI YAMI is a release that is not easy to digest thanks to its song lengths and abundance of tempo and dynamic shifts (not to mention that all of the lyrics are all in Japanese), but it intriguingly contorts the genre’s paradigm to create a challenging listening experience for those up for a good brain drain. www.level-plane.com -Mike SOS