Stuart Dahlquist has put in his time in whatever constitutes this "scene", a grim, often ambient take on long form electric fatalism, through bands as diverse as the genre-less microcosm they circumscribe: Burning Witch -> Goatsnake -> Sunn O))). Asva is the logical convergence of a brilliant career, a poisoned marriage of the slow burn rage of Burning Witch subsumed in the frothy wake of Sunn's oceanic churn. The title track is a funereal meditation on mortality, specifically the prematurely snuffed life of Dahlquist's brother, Michael. Epic and profound, the work never exhibits any choked up petulance or knee jerk lashing out; indeed, the degree of patient introspection is astonishing. This is cerebral music -- head music -- of the highest order, insistent on pontification and demanding intellectually, as in fact the rest of the album shall turn out to be.

"Christopher Columbus" could have been aptly titled after this impelling urge at interior exploration and left at that, but Dahlquist is not nearly that one dimensional. Over a simmering baritone that sublimates the rolling, tossed about experience of seafaring, a cavernous sprinkling of suspended reverb seems to echo out into the crepuscular haze. Eventually, inevitably, the lolling rhythms brandish a more menacing intent, the echoing tribal roll of the drums accelerate in delivery, and a ceremonial chord progression arises out of the depths in confliction at some imponderable ideal.

Without doubt the emotional high water mark of an album virtually limitless in its bruising fatalism, "A Game in Hell, Hard Work in Heaven" rounds up the most substantial bank of talent amongst the eight album participants listed in the liner notes (including the record's only vocals, courtesy of Holly Johnston, and Randall Dunn, responsible for something called "electric wind"). The most songlike of _WYDKIF_'s four tracks, the vocals nonetheless consist of lyric-less chanting, and the guitar refrain is as weighted and obtuse as before, but in repetition becomes a motif one can seize and follow hand over hand to its logical conclusion. Especially effective is the often blunted character of the final note in the chord progression, which one would expect to ring out openly based on the ascending notes preceding it... in taking a turn downward instead, coupled with the use of palm muting on the guitar strings, it instead evokes a less assured, questioning character redolent of the album's central themes.

It's the consistency and vigilance over these themes that strike a nerve in the listener who sticks with it for the long haul. Every minute of every song seems to follow logically from what came before it, which in itself is a fairly groundbreaking feat in an experimental field known for creating atmosphere and then milking the hell out of it like a spent cow. "A Trap for Judges" retains the dark, ceremonial guise of the other three tracks, but it is the most blatantly doom influenced, which would seem to indicate a more traditional interest in instrumental song development than many of Dahlquist's freewheeling peers. Though hazy and refracted, _WYDKIF_ is concentrated and just... no smoke, no mirrors, only patient catharsis and the humane brilliance of Stuart Dahlquist and his hand picked confederates.