Big anticipation on my part for this new collaboration between two of my favorite artists from the realm of heavy avant-guitar droneology.

Fear Falls Burning is the solo guitar drone project of Dirk from vidnaObmana; he had gotten in touch with me about a year ago and we traded

music, sending me a pile of stuff that Fear Falls Burning had released, all of which I fell in love with. Rich, heavy guitar drones and austere

amplifier rumble is his forte, and Dirk has carved out a unique language of tones that is unlike anything else out there. And of course the

fuzzed-blown, crushing dream doom of Nadja and it's guitarist Aidan Baker have been longtime favorites of ours. So what happens when these two

forces of slomo drone combine? They actually released an LP called We have departed the circle blissfully that came out last year

through Conspiracy but I wasn't able to get my hands on any of those limited edition LPs that came out as part of their anniversary series, so

this new CD is my first time hearing Nadja and FFB in action together. And it's every bit as intense and massive as I expected. The disc is

split into four tracks, each one roughly 15 minutes long, and opens with a heavy wall of rumbling distorted feedback and guitar noise,

slow-shifting chords burnt out and fried, a thick miasma of buzzing speakers and sludgy rumble somewhat like Matt Bower's Mirag stuff, but in

that cloud of fuzz are little half-realized melodies drifting through the feedback and rattling percussion sounds buried beneath the buzz.

Heavy but ethereal, and eventually the track drifts apart into arctic feedback drones and deep minimalist drift with cymbal noise running

backwards over it. This first track flows right into the second, where a simple plodding drumbeat starts up, the other instruments become

quiet, and a heavy synth drone begins to appear. The feedback slowly winds back up, endless heavy tones sustained for eternity, layers of amp

buzz building on top of each other, and a pretty melody begins to appear, repeating over and over while that pounding drumbeat continues on.

Everything becomes more distorted as the track wears on, and finally turns into a buzzing, synthetic blissout by the end; it reminds me of

something that Growing would have done on His Return. The third track is the quietest of the bunch, a kind of soft drifting post-rock

drone, swirling organ-like keyboard sounds warbling in the background, a heavy plodding drumbeat drowning down in the mix, an almost

Western-tinged, tumbleweed guitar melody being plucked out lethargically, dreamy and ominous, and again flowing straight into the next track,

the final fourth track, starting with eerie dissonant drones and soft background hu that stretch out for ages, until a massive, distorted riff

descends, a sinister droning sludgemetal dirge now suddenly propelled by the skeletal drumbeat rising to the surface.

The CD is issued in a limited edition of 1000 copies, and comes in a 6-panel digipak.