When I was first introduced to the band last year, before The Spiders Sleep was even a twinkle in anyone's eye, I was sceptical of the description "Australia's answer to Opeth". Generally, if a band is described as Australia's answer to anything, it ends up sounding nothing like whatever it's supposed to sound like, and more often than not it sucks. But with their debut album now written, recorded and released, 'neath are not only Australia's answer to Opeth, they have released an album that is better than almost anything Opeth have released in their career.

Like Opeth, they skilfully work the contrast between crushing heaviness and moody atmosphere, switching between furious death vocals and brilliant clean, ambient passages without sounding disjointed or awkward. The progression between the two styles is very organic and natural, and vocalist Boyd Potts is the only death metal growler I've heard other than Mikael Akerfeldt who has an equally brilliant clean singing voice, which is put to great use especially in the choruses of "Sordid Grim Lie" and "Blank Identity Crisis".

Production, courtesy of Kosta Lagis, is almost perfect for an album as sonically diverse as this one. Every instrument shines, and vocals sound so incredible as to be, at times, completely frightening - there is a layered growl at the end of the title track that made me almost shit my pants. Tim Dowdle's guitar work sounds brutally heavy when required, but is crisp and clear during the more intricate, clean sections. Solos are few and far between, but those that do manage to get a look in are tasteful and executed with mastery.

More broadly, the album projects a mood of uneasiness and foreboding, achieved with the use of thick, layered instruments; symphonic, atmospheric keyboards; intentionally out-of-time beats and some unconventional vocal melodies.

The album's first track, "When The Birds Lie Dead", begins with a spacey, Townsendian introduction before launching headlong into the heaviness, where you get the first taste of both Potts' evocative screams and the gutteral growls that will no doubt make you shit your pants later in the proceedings.

"The Spiders Sleep", the centre piece of the album, gives you a little breathing space in the first verse before eight-odd minutes of some of the finest, heaviest music an Australian band has ever produced. The "chorus" I guess you could call it is absolutely HUGE, building up from the lullaby-esque verse preceeding it to crush the life out of anyone who happens to listen to it. As mentioned before, when the chorus theme returns at the end of the track, the thickly layered death growls are positively frightening.

The only lowlight of the album for me, if you could call it that, is that "The Silk-Laden Whore" isn't quite as bone-crushingly incredible as the rest of the album. It's a good track, very reminiscent of certain parts of Opeth's Blackwater Park, but amongst the greatness of "The Spiders Sleep" and "Sordid Grim Lie", it loses its lustre and I find myself wanting to skip forward to the next track.

That track is "Sordid Grim Lie", which picks up where the title track left off and is among some of the greatest metal music ever produced by an Australian band. There is a certain air of uncomfortability throughout the track, with strange, intentionally off-key vocal lines contributing greatly to the unease.

"Blank Identity Crisis" is a song that 'neath have re-worked for The Spiders Sleep, and despite being only a little over six minutes long, feels like the culmination of the entire album. The chorus is a fine example of Potts' ability to evoke a feeling of uneasiness with unconventional vocal lines and screams.

Currently the only place to get this brilliant example of Aussie progressive death metal is at the band's gigs or through Obsidian Records' website, but there is talk of a distribution deal with Green Media in the near future, so it should be quite easy to pick it up after that has been organised.

You can hear a preview of the album at the band's MySpace profile (www.myspace.com/neathmusic), or you can check out their forum, hosted by OzProg, here.