Nothing quite like being set up for an ambush when you least expect it. Spreading the Rage opens with the requisite intro, yet it doesn’t have the feel of one; that’s where you get sucker punched. It’s a slow, lazily hypnotic bit of melodic epic-ness, settling on you like a mid-day sun that lulls you towards an unexpected nap – drifting, safe.

And then, BAM! "Ethic Instinct" barges in on your reverie with the impact of a semi-truck head on colliding with a misdirected wheelchair bound paraplegic: it’s all over, never stood a chance. A massive, jacked up charger of a beast, "Ethic Instinct" is absolutely unstoppable, anchored by some of the most intensely recorded double kick drums you might have ever heard and helmed by a singer who sounds like a more aggressive Varg Vikernes. The brief breakdowns of melody aren’t a respite so much as a warning that the damage will continue again momentarily.

If anything, "Ethic Instinct" serves as the battering ram to knock the door clean of its hinges. For the most part, Disbelief settles into a more deliberate, measured tone for the bulk of the album, creating a thick, stifling atmosphere of rage (!) and oppression that calls to mind Red Harvest on more than a number of occasions. Both "No More Lies" and "Drown" are thick, swirling chunks of sound that affix themselves to your frontal lobe and refuse to release. "Death Will Score" and "For Those Who Dare" counterbalance those tracks with a more up-tempo approach, the former employing a guitar line that treads just to the side of commercial.

Still, it goes on. Each track adding some other ingredient to the mix. "Democracy," the closest these guys will ever come to penning a ballad, wraps around and through you with all the melancholy and regret of the saddest memory you can dredge from your past. Revolving, tribal drums lock you into the remembrance, an adamant refusal that you can and will not leave. Album closer "Back To Life" raises the stakes one last time. The soundtrack to your ultimate waking nightmare, brimming with feedback, repetitive looping drums and murky, barely articulated shouts. It’s the end of the world on a valium binge. Everything you know is folding in around you but you’ll be too blissed out to care. (8.5/10)