From Bandcamp, "What Remains When Hope Has Failed" is a dynamic and emotional journey where quiet musical passages draw the listener in with vulnerability and beautiful, clean guitar arrangements that feel like FIELDS OF NEPHILIM at their most post-apocalyptic, only to build with reflective, melancholic mids, before exploding with blasting ferocity. From subtle, yet expansive synth textures, complex drum work that never loses grasp on a powerful feel/swing, it all strengthens the overall impact of this album with colorful dynamics and a songwriting characteristic which can certainly be traced back to the early days of WODENSTHRONE."

The album has six songs, and "The Wyrm of the World's End" is first. The opening tones are melodic and gentle, but tense, and you have the feeling something is right around the corner. That something is a plate of aggressive harsh vocals, and the riffs harden, but still with melody. "This Rotten Bough" is heavier and weighted out of the date, and it has a dark aggression. The vocal style does not vary much…there are some gutturals here and there and they have a rasp that crackles in the higher ranges. "Sky Avalanche" uses some dual harmonies in the guitar work, and here's where we get some Post Rock vibes. The vocals are still horrid, but the music tempers them quite a bit. If you could separate the two, you would hear wonderful melodies in the music. But, that's all part of the contrast in the genre.

"Quiescence" means "quietness or stillness; inactivity or dormancy," and that's the feeling at the start…almost as if you are stirring from a favorable dream. That second before your eyes open can be magical. Again, the vocal screams but up hard against the flowing melody, and neither side gives. "Bereft" is just a minute-and-a-half, consisting mostly of clean guitars and that somber dampness that hangs in the air like a fog. The title track is the final cut; a 10-minute closing opus. It enters slowly, and even with the advent of distorted guitars and rigorous drumming, it remains quite charming. The two combatants square off with each other in the ring and are both bloodied, but neither are knocked out. It ebbs and flows through hardened passages to gentler ones, from pain to acquiescence if you will.

If you take a look at the unassuming cover for the album, it might not tempt you to open it up and listen to it. But, as the saying goes, don't judge a book by its cover. In considering the album title, when optimism, belief, or the expectation that things will get better is gone… what's left of us? I prefer the defiant interpretation over the bleak one, where your will to live is hardened and you drag yourself off of the floor and fight back. If we have no fight left, what is there to live for? These questions you can ponder while you take in the album's beauty and starkness.