Let me start out by saying this: “Obsolith,” the opening track on Spaceslug’s “Eye the Tide” record, is one of my favorite songs of the year. Goddamn, it’s made of such ethereal, intoxicating, mesmeric beauty, you just want to live inside of it for awhile, as if it were a tent under the spinning skies above.

“Obsolith” alone justifies this album and this band. Spaceslug’s best has a strong similarity to Mastodon’s mellower side, with hypnotic, droning, harmonized vocals, gusting like wind over the stoned guitar churn. Track 2, “Spaced by One” continues this feel pretty well, but the final section gets maddeningly redundant, and goes on for too many minutes. It needs a shave, because it eventually begins to stumble over its own beard.
There are only six songs total, but the rest of the record fails to live up to the glory and promise of its beginning. They get into modern faddish screamy vocals in the otherwise-good “Words Like Stones,” which is a jagged fit, at best. “Vialys Part I and II” is a not-unpleasant nine-minute jam, but its repetitions might require some pre-partying to fully appreciate.