GODS OF THE EARTH is a continuation of AGE OF WINTERS' assault on eardrums, while a step forward in sheer relentlessness, grabbing you by the devil horns and dragging you through the headbanging mire. Combing thrash, doom, hardcore, and speed metal, this Texan quartet has torn through singer/guitarist J.D. Cronise's tapestry of wizard-and-warlock-imagery and evaded silly cliché by imbuing the songs' bombast with eerie drama and dead-serious urgency. Where there would normally be solos, there are double-tracked riffs; where a drummer would generally keep the beat during a twin-guitar harmony, here Trivett Wingo drops some double-bass and cymbal crashes. GODS follows the template of its forefathers but strangely inverts all the expected dynamics, ultimately allowing rhythm and lead to trade-off on the evil--never relenting on the heaviness, no matter who's at the fore.