Five-year-old band Rintrah’s debut LP, Salt of the Earth, is a success as a soft metal/psych-rock hybrid rife with spiraling, lengthy but not directionless jams. In 2010, Rintrah debuted its first EP, Hold Dear the Ember, and in the wake of the release, played with bands like Royal Thunder, RWAKE and Skeletonwitch before starting a first full-length, recorded by Mikey Allred (Inter Arma, Across Tundras) and mastered by Alan Douches (High on Fire, Baroness, Unearth, Shadows Fall, Mastadon, Converge).

Salt of the Earth is ambient, hard but not abrasive, transient, pretty and sometimes flowery, and fluid in transitioning from metal segments into spatial jams through which Jeremy Fleming drives deep trenches with the bass, like on “Dead Black Hearts.” The record is slow to reveal its metal self, beginning with a cerebral instrumental effect on the opener, “World and Man”—kicked off by a blast of guitar, courtesy of Jason Wright and Brett McKee—and bass that sounds less fitting for a particular genre label and more just instrumentation that sounds like some sort of Second Coming.

I like the album name. It’s befitting; while veering on the side of astral in its style, the record is heavy but the pace is very slow. The term “stoner metal” has been used, although I think the nine tracks—which total 54 minutes—are too structured (however perpetually shape-shifting they may be) for that label. Tracks often open with loose melodies riding waves of distortion before going dark-side at the song’s peak, and then leveling out at the end, as on “Masters of Fate.”

McKee’s vocal style moves in tandem with the instrumental transitions as well, as he alternates singing and screaming.

The songs aren’t quick shots; some clock in around six to eight minutes, and they’re layered, ponderous and, taken together, almost have a theatrically linear effect, as if they mark the acts of a semi-trippy doom metal play. There’s influence from Black Sabbath here, Tool at the record’s best, and Mastodon for sure.