The four songs on this album are all over the ten minute mark. The first four minutes of the album works off of a hypnotic drone that is smoothed over by the vocal melody of Rachel Davies. Eight minutes in and they are ebbing back and forth, though the dynamic punch has a lower ceiling when it comes to the magnitude of the heaviness they hit you with compared to past works, though they have never been a metal band so that is not an expectation here. When they lurch back into the more explosive side of the song their is more sonic density the last go around. The second song is not as engaging until the rumbling bass line kicks in. The drumming is more jazz like and her vocals weave around the minimal arrangement with more serpentine sinew.
"The Wolf Sun" was more in line with what you typically expect from this trio and that doesn't mean they were dialing it in there was still a lot of passion in the performance and it hit all the sonic sweet spots that their brand of vocal oriented post rock should. The last song lingers in more languid atmosphere. Her vocals carry the weight for the bulk of the song. Her voice sounds stronger on this album. The build is more like something you might hear on the more recent Russian Circles albums as it builds in the same level that black metal has without resorting to blast beats.
This one is pretty solid but doesn't wow me like they did on " A New Nature" which had a tenser under current and might have been a shade darker. At times this album is more minimal and I think indulges in the drone a little too much , how ever the songs are still strong the bar was just raised a little higher, so I'll give this one an 8.5. Fans of the band will still find them doing what you love for them to do just with a different focal point and better production, though far from selling out.
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