Asunder play towering doom that's as majestic and haunting as it is soul crushingly heavy. These guys really have a mastery of slow crawling tempos and thundering heaviness, while they incorporate cellos into the sound for an even more sublime feeling. I love the guitar on this disc from those saddening melodies and epic riffs to the occasional Sabbath-tinged lick. There's even a screaming solo in the title track that took me by surprise and just shows yet another of the many sides of the guitar work on this disc. The drumming is ultra slow and pounding which is perfect for this style of music and just keeps everything so dense and heavy that the listener never has a chance to breathe. Vocally the band uses a mix of vile, raspy growls and spoken word delivery which only helps enhance the amazing atmosphere of despair that this disc induces. This record is just a killer from start to finish.

Asunder is a band that understands how to construct an aural monolith of staggering proportions. Taking the freeform dirges pioneered by the likes of Skepticism or Disembowlement and mixing it with the classical vibes prominent in the dark metal, Asunder has developed a breed of quasi-doom that is distinctive and menacing. Not haunting and menacing. This isn't atmospheric music that swirls around you like some amorphous mist; this is an atmosphere that is tangible and thus suffocating. It is the sense of imminent harm versus a nebulous hint of danger.