Riffs that churn slowly are recurrently strewn over strange black metal parts lurking deep in the chasm of "Oblique to All Paths," while samples and feedback augment this forlorn world to make it feel uneasy and calamitous. These songs are shackled in line by their relative uniformity, and hardly trod down atypical angles that would otherwise divert the group's musical direction, for better or for worse. Culted depends on the dreary fog created by the sweltering riffs mixing with crushing rhythm sections and Jansson's distressed shrieks and whispers, which are both amplified regularly. Picture an isolated, dejected atmosphere � la Neurosis' "Souls at Zero" bound to stronger metallic elements of doom and black metal with wider passages of samples and feedback used to enhance the feelings of remoteness.

The seams of this approach, while ironclad and impenetrable on the surface, tend to wobble after holding up such an upsetting edifice for sixty minutes and some change. Culted starts off with nineteen minutes of familiarizing their forlorn dimension on "Brooding Hex," which does a remarkable job transmitting the amalgamation of sample-heavy structures and disjointed blackened doom metal "Oblique to all Paths" is based upon. "Illuminati" and "Jeremiad" show the direction in its finest form, the colossal fractures of roasting riffs and gnarled sequences unrelentingly disturbing. Unfortunately, Culted's design, though open-ended, seems more like a checklist than a harrowing adventure on "Intoxicant Immuration" and "Transmittal," both songs too long and too paltry.