What happens to the earth, happens to all of us. We feel the tearing of her skin by plows and bulldozers as the same abusers rend our bodies, stealing our labor, love, hope. Eroded like a steep slope stripped of trees, all that we are flows downhill, identities erased, connection to nature severed at the root. The bottomless, visceral rage we feel at this constant rape of everything green and vital: that’s what this album expresses with every slow-pummeling, nerve-scraping, screaming note. Dave Aftandilian