Now that the correct genre has been reestablished, we can all revel in how amazingly terrifying _SWN_ is, despite its embrace of song structure and space. Boy, does Dark Descent know how to pick 'em. Most superficially (but highly entertaining), song titles like "The Bright White Nothing at the End of the Tunnel" and "Where I End and the Hemlock Begins" introduce the kind of runaway nihilism that inspires the immediate devotion of tunnel-visioned depressives everywhere. Bleak, grayscale cover art of a lone body curled into a head-down, knees-up fetal posture of submission definitely ramps up the general dread about what the music offers.

And the music? Thrashy double-time tempos split with occasionally clear bass lines underpin bestial enunciations and decaying, bent-string torture of the highest caliber. Compositions are deliberate, well constructed, crackling with bare intent and enthusiasm for the songs' adventurous scope. Thantifaxath point at black metal's outer walls, one by one, shouting, "Let's scale that one!" Intros and outros make hay out of lo-fi drones, guitars fire off leads like tech-death with ebola, "Eternally Falling" cuts neatly across the album's midsection with six minutes of cinematic string discharge, and album closer "Lost in Static Between Worlds" leaves jaws flapping in the wind by drawing together some of the band's best ideas into a sprawling sacrament of dissonance.

_SWN_ is the rare black metal record that warrants being added to an already overstuffed record collection. It is, without question, a 2014 album-of-the-year contender. Not noise, but definitely the next best thing.