Excellent cinematic heaviness from the midwestern trio The Autumn Project, whose meditative post rock glides blissfully through huge slabs of crushing, heavenly distortion. Yeah, there are a LOT of bands out there doing the metallic post-rock thing, and I'm generally a sucker for anything along these lines, but The Autumn Project do manage to stand out from the masses of Godspeed / Mogwai disciples by adding incredibly lush atmosphere to their music with multiple layers of sparkling keyboards and rich electronic textures. The songs also don't quite follow the quiet-build-to-crushing-crescendo structure employed by most of the post-Mogwai/Isis bands, and instead move horizontally over lengthy passages of pure static feedback drone, complex math-rock drumming, and triumphant melodies that dissipate into pure free-drone bliss and growling formless guitar noise. Very beautiful and edgeless music, particularly the epic "Between The Smoke And Mirrors" which has a breathtaking heavy hook that appears halfway through the song, and the heavy parts have a weird, processed tone to them that sounds more ethereal than metallic, while still being pretty freaking heavy, as delay and effects drenched guitars send silver arcs tracing across the horizon. This disc sort of reminds me of a mix of (a less distorted) The Angelic Process and Labradford, The Cure's Disintegration and Kranky Records drone, Sigur Ros and Godspeed You! Black Emperor all wrapped up into a majestic series of instrumental sound designs, and is one of the best and most memorable new "post rock" albums I've heard this year. Fans of Souvenirs Young America's quirky instrumentals should definitely check this band out, but this is going to be a hit with anybody that is into the instrumental post-metal zeitgeist. The booklet and packaging also has a lot of neat looking illustrations and brief text that give this the feel of a children's book. Recommended.