The entire band truly starts to shine during the second half, as they leap from style to style with often ridiculous speed, like a bunch of kids with ADD flipping television channels. The facetiously-titled "Agnostic Grunt" dips into Mercyful Fate style doom, including a terrific midtempo stomp the Danish legends excelled at two decades ago. "High Season V" revisits the more straightforward Saxon sound the band seems to love, before abruptly launching into the Sabbath-esque swing of "Starport Blues". The fact that all this happens in little more than five minutes makes it all the more flabbergasting. The rousing, progressive mini-opus "Atavism II" brings the album to an lively finish.

Atavism couldn't be less fashionable these days, but with so many young American bands so bent on capitalizing on the immense popularity of metalcore, it's great to see a band like Slough Feg proudly flying the old-school flag. The band might not come from a place steeped in mythology and legend, but they do exude one of the best American traits that many European bands lack: pure charisma. (Popmatters.com)