You can never claim you have heard the heaviest music ever until you experienced Chicago Lair of the Minotaur. I am proud that I was the first to introduce their earlier albums to the readers here, but then MetalReviews lost track of the band. With Steven Rathbone remaining as the only, yet quintessential, part of the trio since those days Lair of the Minotaur released another pair of albums along the way and have set up their own label The Grind-House Records. It is on this label, and in anticipation of the next upcoming full-length, Godslayer EP is being released.

The title track shows that Lair of the Minotaur is called riff-mongers for a reason. The singular perpetuating main riff just keeps on slamming it home, the bass is vibrating in the gut, double bass drumming adding even more thunder towards the end. This is death/sludge rock at its truest, if there is a genre like that. Rathbone’s voice is now filled with more anxiety than I remember, adding a little bit of a hardcore element. Godslayer is heavy, catchy and powerful.

The B-side The Black Heart of the Stygian Drakonas is a more involved and varied affair. From thrash to hardcore to mid-point quieting down, to even some quick synth moment thrown in for good measure, with this song Lair of the Minotaur continues paying tribute to the epic Greek mythology line of their earlier thinking.

The EP sound is a monster, booming and clear at the same time. If that is the shape Lair of the Minotaur is in these days, the heavy riffage aficionados definitely have something to look forward to.