There should be a rule against naming your band 'Ganon' and not mentioning anything about Hyrule.

That being said, "In the Dead of Sleep" really isn't that bad of an album. Ganon are a five-piece from Michigan playing sludgy doom metal in the vein of Neurosis, Isis, and lesser-known bands such as Cable and Rwake. Their music juxtaposes slow, sweeping tides of distortion with angry, aggressive percussion and harsh vocals. They are brutal and yet melodic, active and passive at almost the same time.

It makes for an interesting ride. "In the Dead of Sleep" is composed of five long tracks that fade from one to the next, creating a rollercoaster tapestry of extreme metal and extreme ambiance. Only one song is less than seven minutes long, and every track boasts slow build-ups, quiet plateaus, and near-epic crescendos that you can't help but feel as much as you hear.

That's not to say Ganon's debut is boring. Unless you can't stand anything slower than a thrash gallop, this quintet does manage to keep the listener engaged throughout the course of this disc. That's not to say that it doesn't benefit from a less-than-epic length (the album is less than forty minutes in length, not counting an extended bout of silence leading up to a 'secret track'). But even when Ganon fade into soundscape mode, they maintain a strong dynamic nature. Drummer Brian (no last names are given) is always providing some sort of creative riff or fill, and is certainly the most skilled member of the band, at least in terms of displayed musicianship. Ryan and Greg are equally fluid on the guitar-end of the spectrum, mixing long-lasting fuzz riffs with sparse melodic punctuation and crunching rhythms. Clark manages to keep along well on bass, although as is too often the case amongst extreme metal he fails to shine through in any notable ways.

Vocalist Kenny (who is also credited with keys) is the band's weak point: his harsh vocals are characteristic of this style of music, but remain unvaried and untextured throughout the course of "In the Dead of Sleep." They are a shade between hardcore growls and death metal vocals, and do absolutely nothing to accent any of rich variety of the rest of the music. He's not terrible, especially by the standards of extreme metal vocalists, and vocals are surprisingly sparse on this album, but Kenny could certainly benefit from a little more diversity in his delivery.

"Through Wires" serves as a pleasant tribal interlude, entering territory covered by the Dillinger Escape Plan and The End with positive results. I'm also not sure whether there is some layering of percussion going on, or if Brian is simply good enough to sound like two drummers. Either way, the middle track on this album opens as a pleasant oasis in the midst of the storm, although this inevitably transitions back into Ganon's characteristic heaviness. But it does show that the band isn't completely tethered to previous conceptions of sludge and doom.

I would certainly recommend Ganon to any fan of extreme metal that can also tolerate three-minute songs stretched into eight minutes. "In the Dead of Sleep" makes for great background aggression, and also holds up well to direct attention. It's not necessarily the kind of music I am always in the mood for, but a few improvements in the vocal department and a few more years to hone their craft, and Ganon could be a heavy-hitter in the doom sludge genre.