Tampa stoner-metal trio Floor was formed in 1992 by guitarist/vocalist Steve Brooks, guitarist/bassist Anthony Vialon, and drummer Betty Monteavaro. A year later, Monteavaro was replaced by Jeff Sousa, after which Floor released a handful of EPs and splits before breaking up in 1996, as much a legend as a band. But Floor re-formed the following year (with another new drummer, Henry Wilson) and spent the next four years as a barely active unit — releasing no new music till 2002, when they dropped their self-titled full-length debut on No Idea Records — before splitting up again in 2003. It’s about as small a catalog as any band can produce in 11 years, but Floor got some serious mileage out of their limited output: Today, their 2002 debut is roundly considered a classic; it blended punishing down-tuned guitars with bright sugary riffs, and it pretty much gave birth to the sludge-pop subgenre, whose adherents include the likes of Baroness, Kylesa, Red Fang, and, most notably, Torche, the band Brooks formed after parting ways with Floor. But Brooks, Vialon, and Wilson joined forces again in 2010 to release a comprehensive Floor box set, Below & Beyond, and play some live shows (which, in some cases, featured all three drummers: Wilson, Sousa, and Monteavaro). The newly reunited Floor were met with enthusiastic crowds, which naturally led to plans to record a new album. At last, that new album, the Kurt Ballou-produced Oblation, is due in April, and it’s absolutely worthy of its legacy. Oblation arrives more than a decade after Floor, but the band’s addictive blend of concussion-inducing low end, dirtbike-trick riffs, and Brooks’ Chambord-sweet voice sounds every but as potent as it did in ’02 — and, for that matter, every bit as potent as the similarly punchy formula Torche has spent the last decade perfecting. We’ve got the album’s first single, “War Party,” for you to hear today, and the two halves of the title pretty well capture the Floor dichotomy: war on the bottom; party up top. It’s great and you should listen.

Oblation is out 4/25 via Season Of Mist; pre-order here.

Oblation tracklist:

01 “Oblation”
02 “Rocinante”
03 “Trick Scene”
04 “Find Away”
05 “The Key”
06 “New Man”
07 “Sister Sophia”
08 “The Quill”
09 “Love Comes Crushing”
10 “War Party”
11 “Homegoings And Transitions”
12 “Sign Of Aeth”
13 “Raised To A Star”
14 “Forever Still”