Former members of the political hardcore band Lesser Of Two are back with this interesting new band that combines chamber music instruments with blackened crustcore. The mix of strings and D-beat driven hardcore isn't new - bands like Garmonbozia, Fall Of Efrafa, Wake Up On Fire, and Remains Of The Day have all incorporated cellos into their otherwise fiery and apocalyptic thrash. Embers, however, use a viola in their music, and it's as much of a lead instrument as the guitar is, maybe even moreso. The viola synchs up with the keyboards, which have an almost brassy, trumpet-like tone, and this combination gives the album a truly dark and haunting atmosphere that is a perfect accompaniment to the intensely bleak and abject emotions that imbue songs like "Suicide", "Corruption", "Drowning", "Heroin" and "War". Kelly Nelson's blackened raspy vocals are demonic sounding but are used sparingly, and the band allow themselves to sprawl out on the lengthy instrumental parts which sound like a folk-tinged post-rock. When they let loose with the metal though, Embers kick up a serious blackened storm of complex polyrythmic drums and shredding black metal riffs, slow doomy crawls and apocalyptic tribal dirges a la Neurosis, winding Middle Eastern sounding melodies and brutal, pitch-black crustcore. Symphonic anarchist pagan crust metal? This disc rules, I'm really looking forward to hearing more from 'em.