The first track, Shapeshifting Nightmares, serves as a short, five minute introduction to the release. It revolves around a strong bass element, and faltering - almost sluggish - high-mid/treble crackle, which is stereo split. It’s a piece full of dark, slow dread, and could have happily continued for much longer. Grim Herbal Preparations, the next work, is quite a journey. It begins as almost a treble-blizzard version of Shapeshifting Nightmares: shifting, needle-sharp treble, with stereo split crackle. Around the two minute mark, it cuts to a stinging, high-mid wall, with a resonant, ‘puffing’ loop in the background - as I said above, this is not an album of traditional wall noise… After this, the track expands to almost enter ‘digital academic noise’ territories, before heavily contrasting walls fall in, dirty, and crumbly. It’s an incredibly nice section. The rest of the track follows these latter elements, waxing and waning - though with the odd, brief interruption of a searing, thin, treble line around the 13 minute point.

Following this, Lycanthropic Sorcery is perhaps more standard fare: 20 minutes of trundling bass, and crackle that fizzes over the top - more in movement, than timbre. Halfway through, however, the wall suddenly peters out, before immediately relaunching itself - a bit like someone quickly turning an old television off and on. This act curiously repeats itself at the three-quarters mark - even at it’s most traditional sounding, Asleep In The Lake still seeks to disrupt, and challenge. The penultimate track, Prowling Through the Birches, is a thorough exploration of three elements, and how they clash, and compliment. The 20 minute piece begins with a saturated, overdriven treble mush, before setting out the three distinct parts: a lurching bass, which teeters and stumbles like a large bass rig being recorded by a dictaphone, gravelly walls which are hollow and smooth, and more jagged and blustery attacks of treble. The entire work is really a play between these three, and it’s compelling and engaging. The last track, Rites That Follow the Arc of the Moon, is a 7 minute long coda to Moonlight on the Shadowy Vale. It founds itself on a hard, hard bass drone, hostile and encroaching. More delicate, treble crackle clings onto this, before expanding into hesitant, stuttering textures. But the low-end churn remains dominant throughout, in sound and atmosphere. When the track finishes, the silence is quite uncomfortable.

This is a superb release. If you’re not adverse to HNW that shifts and develops, it’s (to use an annoying phrase) a no-brainer. Ironically, although there’s a clear occult/etc theme to the release, the technical quality of the tracks actually distracts me from that potential atmosphere. Hopefully with further listens, I’ll be able to enjoy that angle more. Unfortunately, the physical release is long gone, but the Palinopsia bandcamp is there for you. A very solid, expansive release.