With two-tracks apiece, End and Cult Leader combine to deliver a lesson in considered brutality as they Gather and Mourn.

Split EPs can be strangely disconnected releases, sometimes feeling more like vehicles of convenience than cohesive artistic projects.  Thankfully, these two bands, whilst distinct in execution, mirror each other’s preoccupations in terms of form, function, and aesthetic, imbuing this EP with a powerful cohesiveness.  End open proceedings in typically visceral fashion with Eden Will Drown, which closes with a pulverising breakdown, before segueing into The Host Will Soon Decay, which draws powerfully upon a much more industrial palette.  Cult Leader then pick up the baton with the raging Ataraxis, and then become more expansive on Long Shadows, which builds relentlessly to a shuddering blackened shoegaze finale.