RWAKE

That distant rumbling you can hear is the sound of an abominable colossus rising from the grave. RWAKE have been conspicuous by their absence since 2011. Their last album, "Rest", was a mercilessly bleak affair, full of suicidal thoughts and references to the end of things. Like everything else the Little Rock septet had released since the late '90s, it transcended the usual sludge, doom and post-metal affiliations. Much like their spiritual forebears in NEUROSIS, RWAKE make music that takes monumental heaviness as a starting point and then wrings every last drop of existential tumult from the untamed, experimental clangor that ensues. Their greatest works — 2004's "If You Walk Before You Crawl, You Crawl Before You Die" springs most easily to mind — have an unerring, unearthly power, but the burden of creating such mind-expanding art clearly weighed heavily. Returning after a long hiatus, RWAKE re-emerge into an even more horrifying and hopeless world. Perfect timing.

It doesn't take long to recognize that "The Return Of Magik" is a fitting title for this long-awaited comeback. Across six songs and 54 minutes, RWAKE reveal that they haven't lost an ounce of their creative bravery or intensity. After a brief overture of acoustic guitars and accordion, "You Swore We'd Always Be Together" flexes its muscles, with barbarous, discordant sludge riffs and dreamy, prog-tinged detours. As ever, the riffs are the main event, and guitarists John Judkins and Austin Sublett interact with ingenious, intuitive flair. While still bound by post-metal's dynamic ebb and flow, RWAKE continue to explore the genre's outer reaches, both in musical and atmospheric terms. "You Swore We'd Always Be Together" is, despite its inherent spikiness, profoundly moving.

Building upon previous albums' overwhelming emotional density, RWAKE have become an even more muscular and unpredictable proposition. The title track is a fluid, fiery and bruising epic, with vocalist Chris Terry playing the incensed, demonic preacher, consumed with unholy revelations. "We are all scared to death…" he rasps, as another mutant riff makes the floor shake. It becomes bluesier and more fervently metallic as it grinds forward, before slipping gracefully into a surreal, ambient quagmire, like some pitch-black, spectral steamroller, whacked out of its mind on psilocybin and incapable of hitting the brakes.

Next, "With Stardust Flowers" delivers a more direct and brutish dose of artful sludge, until the noise evaporates and RWAKE stride into spine-tingling, post-FLOYDian territory and morph into Satan's own cosmic doom band, as Terry's surreal vocal threats become entangled in a knotty expanse of riffs. Again, there is an emotional weight to all of this that lingers long after the noise recedes.

A towering centerpiece is always welcome, and RWAKE have pulled off a doozy here. "Distant Constellations And The Psychedelic Incarceration" is an astonishing piece of music. It starts with a disquieting monologue set to meandering but gently malicious post-rock, with acoustic guitars and distant drums summoning a mesmerizing, lysergic neofolk vibe that shimmers and glows for several minutes, before the inevitable slow-burning build-up. When the riffs kick in, like pianos dropped from the sky onto the heads of the unsuspecting, the impact is purely cathartic, and yet RWAKE never allow the listener to bask in heaviness for too long. "Distant Constellations…" is as unsettling as it is grandiose, and as exhilarating as it is emotionally ruinous. Minds will be blown. Souls will be scorched. An amazing song.

The two remaining songs sustain the greatness. "In After Reverse" is a punishing campaign of lurching swamp dirt, but with a woozy, mid-song meander through slow-moving, shape-shifting fog. The closing "Φ" is a brief, acoustic epilogue, but one with immense charm.

However RWAKE were occupying their time during all those years of voluntary anonymity, it plainly did them no disservice. One of the most righteous and creative heavy bands of the last 30 years have woken from their slumber and delivered one of the strongest and most satisfying albums of their career. The outlook is still remorselessly grim, but "The Return Of Magik" is reason enough to feel good about being alive. An incredible piece of work.