Considering Anguish are on their second album, these Swedes are pretty damn sure of themselves; content in their rightness since they’re doing it the old way. They confidently serve up riffs they feel are the best riffs, only to better those with the next riff. And that’s part of the appeal: Mountain has no intricate plot devices, rather it’s just killer scenes. It’s all Candlemass-ian epic intros and frozen-in-time Celtic Frost sneers. Anguish pull threads from old tapestries, but not in the smirking, look-what-we-found-at-the-Goodwill way. Mountain is authentic in its timelessness, as if Anguish were raised by Metallicus and Morbid Tales and told to run things the same way. Those forebears instilled traits that one wouldn’t stumble upon, like how to trudge without losing momentum (“Master Of Peak’s Fall”) and use your inadequacies to your advantage (“Snowhammer”). It’s cold and evil stuff, but it fosters the same warmth as paging through a photo album. –Ian [LISTEN]