Formed in Manchester, UK, recently resurrected Death/Doom band ATAVIST releases their newest album here titled "III: Absolution," which contains four lengthy tracks. "Loss" leads off the album; and it's a whopping 17 minutes in length. It opens with steady clean guitar tones, and a sense of positivity. Violin plays solemn notes, as the melancholy tone begins to develop. When the main riff and vocals come in, it's a different story. Heavy, lumbering guitar parts provide the backbone for a dreadful affair. It turns darker around the seven-minute mark. Some clean guitar comes in around the ten-minute mark, and the song is very good at that balance of light and dark...hope and despair if you will. The depressing violin notes make another appearance towards the end of the song.

"Struggle" is close to 15 minutes in length. It opens with a dark and slow pace, like the world is ending. About four minutes in, the song is reduced to just thick, heavy bass guitar notes. The guitars and vocals return, but it's an absolute desolate sound from there. The riffs are so hard and slow that each strike flattens everything in its path. "Self-Realisation" is just under ten-minutes in length. It opens with a faster pace. It then slows to a grind, leaving nothing but big guitar strikes and deadly vocals. Eerie bells mark the end of the song.

"Absolution" is over 18 minutes in length. It takes good while to get going...opening with soft, atmospheric tones for the first four minutes, then clean guitars come in...slowly at first. What you are left with is the feeling of desperation. A heavy passage ensues, followed again by more of that desolate atmosphere until the half way mark, marred with thick bass guitar notes. Slowly, the heaviness returns, complete with doleful lead guitar tones, culminating in a crescendo at the end that would turn any soul inside out.

Overall, this was a deadly slab of Doom Metal that really pushed the envelope. It goes well beyond desolation. The landscapes painted here are frozen, icy stretches of snow covered ground that go on for miles and miles. As you lumber across them, the howling winds slowly freeze you to your death, and you feel your soul leave your body.