Lungfish

Some bands grow up as they grow older; others are born ancient and simply erode. Over the past 15 years, Baltimore's Lungfish has built an edifice of imposing post-hardcore that resounds far beyond the small world that birthed it -- and Feral Hymns is another chip off that old block. Guitarist Asa Osborne still twists his strings into knots, and on tracks like "Time Is a Weapon of Time" and "Sing," his loping, folk-informed arpeggios mesh with the rhythm section to form a vast, hypnotic apparatus.

But it's singer Daniel Higgs -- part savant, part sailor, part sorcerer -- who anchors these songs with sea-chanty sophistry, spinning myth and wisdom out of raw-throated mantras. Produced by Tim Green of the Fucking Champs, the album has a crystalline quality that's been missing from Lungfish's last few efforts. While a certain murky aura fits the band, Lungfish reveals new shapes lurking within its primordial drone.