Like a fog machine unceasingly produces an airy, hazy atmosphere, so does Fear Falls Burning create an ethereal, misty soundscape through manipulated guitar. Clouds of droning textures form to threaten your bright mood. These ghostly tracks originated on a 2006 vinyl release, but are now incarnated on CD. The first track, “19:19” takes this general foundation, but adds a few plucked, blurry, invasive guitar notes to the formula. The second track, “19:54” scales back a bit and instead makes things interesting by painting a starry midnight sky (perhaps Van Gogh’s own) in recorded audio form. I could very easily picture myself looking up at the darkened heavens with all their splendor and get the same chills as I do from “19:54”. The third and final (bonus) track, “and the land torn down,” was recorded live in Hamburg, Germany in 2006. Clocking in at 28 minutes it approaches the listener in a slightly different form. Rather than the fuller, softer, flatter, lower, textures, this one has a higher resonation. It’s like biting into tinfoil, but experiencing glum euphoria instead of unpleasantness. Layers are added over the long, demanding track. Climbing notes, thicker (familiar) films of ambiance, and a feeling of growing exploration, steer this beast in a different direction to find itself as a new entity at the end. Very, very cool album art of dismal (Belgian?) architectural photography on an LP style sleeve. Perhaps introspective, just like the title, perhaps satirical of life’s optimism? Either way, great release! 7/10 -- Dave Miller (15 July, 2009)