There’s no mistaking the fact that Vancouver’s Bison B.C. have their own ideas about how to make music. From their previous releases we learned that they worship the awesome power of the riff, that louder is inevitably always better, and that throwing in plenty of weird conceptual lyrics is a no-brainer - think Mastodon joining forces with Baroness to take on Lair Of The Minotaur and High On Fire. The monster combination has certainly stung enough ears to warrant this reviewer getting a little excited about this latest effort.Continuing pretty much where they left off, opening track ‘Stressed Elephant’ flings great wads of sludge around until the chugged riffs stick - Brad McKinnon’s thudding drum attack holding everything together whilst James Farwell screams himself hoarse trying to compete with his own guitar. And yet there’s much that is new here. There is generally a more progressive, almost black metal, feel to the majority of song structures - the initial largo of ‘Fear Cave‘ is a fine example of the neurotic doom-streaked plodding that they now seem keen to partake in. Unusually, here the band flirt with atmospheric builds and jarring outros and they are far more prone to battering out gut-busting rhythms than dabbling in the kind of hooks that littered their debut full-length, ’Quiet Earth’ - those on the lookout for a chant-worthy anthem to match the likes of the brutish ‘These Are My Dress Clothes’ or ‘Slow Hand Of Death’ may well be disappointed.When they hit the gas pedal, the thunderous guitar attack and vocal aggression have been ramped up to obscene levels. ‘Two-Day Booze’ tears itself asunder trying to break the sound barrier before leaning on a gang vocal to hammer home the point, whilst the prodigious ‘Take The Next Exit’ burns with such an intense heat that no amount of time-changes can overcome the inevitable moment it runs out of steam. Thankfully, ‘Wendigo Pt. 3’ is there to bring a semblance of sanity to proceedings; slowing the pace, languishing long in the groove, basking in the versatile power it generates.It’s a brave and interestingly experimental effort but it was a tall order for Bison B.C. to build on the insatiable momentum that their ‘Earthbound‘ EP or ‘Quiet Earth‘ had whipped up and ‘Dark Ages’ tends to rather head in the opposite direction. This new expansive approach doesn’t sit quite as easily and the result is an album that leans heavy on the hardcore and lacks the true class needed to be able to fully integrate its multiple personalities into an easily-digestible whole.