First off, let me just say that Grade are a stupendously good band. Their last effort; 'Under the Radar', was an excellent working of melodic, emotive hardcore and this latest release is no different.

From the opening track 'Termites Hollow' to the closer "The Glorious Dead", the album pretty much keeps things moving swiftly with a huge ammount of intensity and emotion. There is, however, one totally fucked up thing about his album: the band have turned into doom fanatics. EVERY single song deals with at least one totaly bleak subject and most of the songs talk about murder or death.

Even the artwork is the same. It would fit in just as well on a Dimmu Borgir CD as a Grade album! Just a few samples of lyrics here "now i roll along with her severred head" (Termintes Hollow) / "these screaming voices of bloodless corpses" (In the Wake of Poseidon) / "to smash her head through the windscreen" (Little Satisfactions). No matter though, this album is just so good. The guitars churn out some crushing metallic riffs in some places with mellow emo-ish bursts in others and everything seems to blend together so well, even if the production is a little thin at times. It would be so hard to pick stand out tracks on here but if i was pushed hard enough then i would have to say 'Termites Hollow', 'Becoming Not Being' or 'Little Satisfactions'. Track 11, 'The Empress' is a four minute long instrumental track which is pretty repetative, but in my opinion still sounds great. One annoying thing here is the final track 'Winds of Hell/ The Glorious Dead'. It's basically about fifteen minutes of wind noises which lead to a pretty mediocore instrumental track. Not a good closer for the album, but the rest of the CD apologises for it pretty well indeed!