Additional personnel: Tom Matz (Mellotron).

Current titleholders of "metal band you may be able to get your indie-rock friend into", Oakland stalwarts High on Fire play their tar-black rumble metal like there's nothing else they'd rather be doing. Certainly the direct offspring of Motorhead's Lemmy, singer/guitarist Matt Pike growls like a '70s muscle car's exhaust system while his guitar tears up reality, at once heavy as a truck and thick as motor oil. New bassist Jeff Martz plucks the strings with suitably deep menace and drummer Des Kensel moves from train track gallops to plodding footsteps with ease, creating a primal caveman racket. Often dismissed as "stoner metal", the thick miasma of cannabis clings around the group's sound, but there's just as much classic proto-black metal like Celtic Frost and Venom in the sound as well, making it just as well suited for strident head banging. Dark and powerful, DEATH IS THE COMMUNION reveals a beast of a band, ready to feast.