If Pennsylvania Death Trip was The Virgos’ descent into sludge-soaked doom and distortion, Road to Noxen feels like them clawing back to the surface — battered, moodier, but still impossibly heavy. Where their 2023 debut thrived on chaotic fire, this follow-up leans into haze and atmosphere, trading immediacy for texture, introspection, and a more expansive sonic palette. The band is clearly evolving, stretching beyond doom metal’s traditional confines into something more fluid: part desert rock, part grunge, part narcotic haze. In doing so, they sometimes sacrifice the razor-sharp intensity that made their earlier work feel so viscerally alive.
The opener, “Miss September ’96,” sets the tone immediately. Slow, cinematic, and cinematic, it evokes the sounds of a night in the woods before breaking into a groovy, Queens of the Stone Age-like swagger. The bass hits deep, the riffs are simple yet hooky, and the drums drive everything forward with no-frills precision. Captured live, the production feels remarkably tight, radiating barroom energy — the kind of track that grabs you by the collar and commands your attention.
“Demolition Dan” takes a different approach, trudging into slower, chugging doom territory. Heavy low-end and muffled vocals dominate, giving it a metallic edge, though the song feels slightly hollow compared to the opener’s vibrant groove. It’s more a drag than a demolition, but the band quickly regains momentum with “Eyeluvgod,” a colossal, instrumental wall of doom. No vocals, no adornments — just suffocating distortion and low-end thunder. It’s one of the album’s standout moments, a reminder of the overwhelming density that made Pennsylvania Death Trip so hypnotic.
From there, Road to Noxen drifts into dreamlike, introspective spaces. “Get So Hi” and “I Dream of Rockets” channel deep ’90s melancholy — somewhere between Nirvana’s bleak introspection and The Verve’s reverb-drenched shimmer. Vocals are fragile, intimate, while guitars drift through layers of tremolo and reverb. The looseness here feels honest: less about precision, more about mood. Both songs linger with a haunted aura, as if written in the afterglow of something already burned out.
“Cannon / Upper Dark Region” marks a return to the band’s doom instincts in full force. The bass buzzes like a dying engine, guitars grind and shriek, and vocals wail from the background, sometimes reaching near-yodeling highs that feel strangely cathartic. It’s the kind of track that reminds you of The Virgos’ raw power when they stop overthinking and simply let it rip.
The latter half of the album is subdued, reflective, and exploratory. “Mercy” and “Gin Goblin” ease into slower, grunge-tinged moods, with vocals that balance vulnerability and detachment — that signature Virgos interplay of beauty and decay. “Burning Cinder of Nag” offers a dreamy, almost ambient interlude, preparing the listener for the closer. And that closer, “Bloody Rose Lollipop,” finally bares the album’s teeth. Riffs snarl, bass rumbles thick and alive, and the vocals are no longer aloof — they spit each line like a challenge. Loud, abrasive, and gloriously unhinged, it ends the album in eruption, perfectly capturing the titular “Road to Noxen” as a long, strange, and exhausting journey culminating in release.
Compared to Pennsylvania Death Trip, Road to Noxen is more textured but less immediate. Bass still rumbles like tectonic plates, guitars are dense and smoky, and production brims with atmosphere. Yet where Death Trip felt relentless and alive, this record often lingers, slower, moodier, and sometimes uncertain of its footing. It’s an album of ideas — some brilliant, others only half-formed — resulting in a work that is as intriguing as it is uneven.
Road to Noxen is a band in transition: still heavy, still strange, but searching for a new identity within the haze. It’s a bold step forward, even if it occasionally stumbles under its own weight. The Virgos haven’t lost their bite, but the blade is dulled slightly this time. Still, when they strike — as on “Eyeluvgod,” “Cannon / Upper Dark Region,” and the furious final roar of “Bloody Rose Lollipop” — they remind you why they mattered in the first place. It’s not the knockout punch of Pennsylvania Death Trip, but it’s a worthy continuation: more of a fevered hallucination than a headbanger’s dream, dense with atmosphere, emotion, and uncompromising heaviness.
NOTABLE TRACKS:
Miss September '96
Eyeluvgod
Mercy