Band:	Uigg
Album:	Of Moose And Men
Style:	Black metal, Thrash metal
Release date:	September 13, 2011
A review by:	Doc G.

01. Endless Suffocation
02. Of Moose and Men
03. Sinking
04. Buckshot
05. Master Hunter
06. Loose Ends
07. Monstrosity
08. Thrown to Wolves
09. Legion
10. Sycophant
11. Crawl
12. Onslaught

Here we go again, another living example of production work being significantly lack-lustre in relativity to the song writing. Let's not get all negative about this now, because Of Moose And Men is actually one solid thrash album at it's core.

With this release, Uigg really bring me back to the sounds of Rumpelstiltskin Grinder's debut album Buried In The Front Yard; sort of a modernized groove-thrash akin to Pantera in many aspects, pushed to a few more aggressive extremes (blast-beats, a few grind-ish riffs here & there.) Of Moose And Men personifies almost everything you'd want in a modern thrash album; aggressive, catchy, a few winks to their influences without being too derivative, all while having just enough variation in riff styles & tempos to keep things exciting.

All these great aspects are horribly obscured by possibly the most unfitting recording job I've ever heard. The riffs here are pretty freakin' massive, too bad the whole thing sounds horribly condensed. At some points, it gets so difficult to get yourself past this John Goodman-In-Tight-Leather-Pants style production just getting into the music can be a real chore. One upside to all this is how forward the percussion is in the mix; the drumming is uniquely interesting, it becomes it's own lead in a way, as opposed to being the usual click-track laden, glorified metronome.

Had the performance & song writing been any less than what it is, this album would have been pretty crappy. However, Uigg really make a leap to overcome the production pit-falls with great success. Ignoring sloppy work at the mixing boards, Of Moose And Men is a really tight album.