Bringing the black into the white, the heavy into the light, the masculine into the feminine and their sludgy doom-drone into the airy environs of brass, choral and string arrangements, Monoliths' four sidelong pieces (the perfect length for a forthcoming 2LP edition, release date TBA) offer the most balanced perspectives yet on Greg Anderson and Stephen O'Malley's ever-expanding soundworld. Also, since it's an increasingly important factor these days when deciding what to physically own and what to simply download, it must be noted that Sunn 0))) have really outdone themselves with this disc's vellum-veiled packaging and cyanotype-and-Serra art direction; besides, without the lyric sheet, how can you expect to follow along with the front-and-center guttural philosophizing of frequent guest vocalist Attila Csihar?