There have been alot of bands that have combined the apocalyptic orchestral visions of Godspeed You Black Emperor and combined them with the thunder of crusty hardcore - right off of the top of my head, I can think of Remains Of The Day and Requiem as two bands that have pulled this particular style pretty well - but I can't think of anyone that has brought together gloomy instrumental music, rampaging dark hardcore, and endtime doominess together with such an unstoppable catchiness as Fall Of Efrafa. These guys are another band that I recently stumbled across while dredging through the internet, and I was pretty amazed by the songs that I heard on their label's site from their latest album Elil...super melodic, with speedy punk riffs that bordered on NOFX-level poppiness, but that catchiness juxtaposed against eerie piano driven passages that drip melancholy, slooow, crushing doom riffs, tons of brutally heavy D-beat powered hardcore a la Tragedy and His Hero Is Gone, and haunting strains of cello. In addition, Fall Of Efrafa surround their music with imagery and mythology that draws from Richard Adam's classic rabbit-society fantasy Watership Down, using elements from the story to create a metaphor for their anarchic, animal-rights focused lyrics. Pretty interesting stuff that I definitely got into, already being a fan of Adam's book and, well, of rabbits in general. I ended up loving Elil (which is also listed in this week's update), and was also able to get the band's first album Owsla, but it's just about out of print and I was only able to get a handful of copies for Crucial Blast. This disc is the first in their trilogy of albums called "The Warren Of Snares", and has five lengthy jams of melodic, speedy crustcore and infectious melodies, pummeling dirgey hardcore, tribal drumming and crawling doom, dark post-rock instrumentals and mournful cellos, like hearing His Hero Is Gone, Godspeed You Black Emperor, and Neurosis performing together beneath a fiery bloodred sky, super heavy and amazingly catchy and atmospheric. Highly recommended. Comes in a cool 4-panel chipboard gatefold jacket with a six page B&W insert booklet.