This double album captures the fruits of a lengthy period of trans-Atlantic collaboration between two sinister veteran ax-wielders and a drum machine. I hadn’t heard Dublin’s To Blacken The Pages (Paul McAree) before this album, but I was pretty familiar with Korperschwache (RKF). Given Korperschwache’s historic stylistic dalliances with drone, extreme noise, and Jesu-esque melodic sludge, however, I was not quite sure what to expect here. The most likely possibility seemed like a cacophonous and evil guitar blow-out in the vein of Skullflower or Our Love Will Destroy The World.

To a certain extent, that is exactly what I got, but there were also some unexpected surprises. The guitars certainly get quite explosive and dense at times, but they are mingled with elements like restraint, structure, and earnest attempts at songwriting that I did not see coming at all. These two took some bold chances, resulting in some surprisingly melodic and songlike material. In fact, the album’s opening track (“Lovecraft”) would not sound at all out of place on a Mogwai or Yo La Tengo album (though the feedback snarls get pretty nasty at times). Then the second track (with vocals!) sounds like a gothed-out Swervedriver, but with a cool beat and some pretty wild guitars going for it. For the most part, however, things are a bit more aberrant (and generally much better than Skullflower, to my ears).

It seems like these two infernal forces were always meant to be together. RKF is a master at creating dark, dense, throbbing beds of sound, but he is generally not a master at self-editing or fleshing-out his ideas into great songs. Apparently, McAree is, as his melodic sense and oft-brilliant lead guitar transform those glaciers of evil into a batch of coherent, focused, and memorable songs without sacrificing much in the way of raw power. Of course, while nothing feels ill-conceived or unfinished, there is still an exhausting amount of material here. There is nothing that I would call “filler,” but if the better songs were winnowed down to just one disc, that album would be an unquestionable masterpiece. In its current form, “A Way Dark” is merely excellent.

It is hard to pick a favorite disc. I initially thought the second one was the stronger of the two, particularly the dark psychedelia of “Inside The Mariana Trench” and the shimmering, undulating ambiance of “Absent Friends.” The epic, lurching 38-minute closer (“Stranded in the Hertzsprung Crater”) also contains some wonderfully space-y passages. As mentioned above, the first disc starts off on a somewhat more accessible and overtly shoegazer-influenced path, which is enjoyable but not quite what these two do best. After that, however, the next four songs are brilliantly visceral, blackened walls of sound and I love them for it (“The Fall of Popolac” is especially volcanic). This album should deservedly earn these two a lot of new fans, as anyone who always wished that ‘90s British shoegaze bands like Ride weren’t so wussy and mopey will find a lot to embrace here. And fans of guitar abuse will probably weep with joy. 9/10 -- Anthony D'Amico (3 March, 2010)