Sunken Seas: Null Hour (Muzai)

With the recent online-only release of Christchurch band Factories' The Supreme Cosmic Consciousness Births a Star Child in Negative Space album and now this tripped-out cosmic rock journey by Wellington trio Sunken Seas, it seems there's some acid tinge in local water.

If Factories offered a dreamscape astral trip, the discordant and aurally dense Sunken Seas strap you to the outside of the rocket for the full thrust of blast off, white heat of the engines and bone-rattling surroundsound.

With the intensity of the Bailterspace-to-Jakob lineage, this is part post-rock and part prog-noir which pulls you in to the vortex and – especially on the swirling intensity of Photographs of the Dead – thrashes around like some creature in Alien, full of malice and fury.

It can be utterly thrilling, yet they also offer a spaciousness to let you breath (A Breed, the portentous and slow joas).

Not everything works (the somewhat directionless You Might Have Been and The Hum, both with distant Joy Division/Fall vocals) but Sunken Seas tour soon to back this up.

You may consider that a warning, but it's an invitation into cathartic noise, chest-thumping volume and an impressive ride into darkness.

Play loud.

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