On their second EP, the German group of Aleph Null assemble four tracks of sludgy metal, veering about on the edges of hard rock, heavy metal, psychedelic, and doom. While they hit some good groove stretches, it’s hard to shake the impression of the tracks being mostly experiments for the band to feel out their dynamics, without having much direction or focus in what they’re putting out. Their most effective song on the EP is also their shortest, with the ~3-minute “Gagarin” building on explorations of an acoustic riff while keeping its scope concise. For fans of the band looking for extra material, it’s a nice little set, but even at under half an hour in duration, it feels like the first half of the EP could have been cut without losing much value.
Scrambled Brains 