HOD – Serpent
Featuring members of Thornspawn and Necrovore, San Antonio’s HOD are a new US black metal band that have shied away from the more brutal and out of key leanings of their main bands, but they still cling to a slight death metal meatiness in sound. With a strange drum production (triggered kick drums and an otherwise over compressed sound highlight a sloppy performance) leading the charge and an atypical, almost croaked out vocal approach, HOD is a strange addition to the US scene. I give them definite respect for not sounding like anyone that comes to mind, but the simplicity and awkward sloppiness of their riffs and song structures leaves me feeling like something is missing, or not hitting the mark. The guitar work and songs overall just feel like they are going through the motions, not sounding particularly evil, memorable, or inventive… They are just striving for that old black metal vibe where the lines between death and black were a bit fuzzier. In a lot of ways, they are within the realm of their musical aspirations, but this is just one of those dry sounding releases that isn’t bad by any means, but needs so much more aggression or spirit in the material to give HOD a much needed boost of interest. –Marty
Ibex Moon Records
Worm Gear 
I’m a little surprised by this review. I like this album a lot and I’m proud of these guys for releasing it…