After the crushing gorgeousness of Quietly, Mouth of the Architect got busy. Despite lineup changes, the band toured Europe, recorded EPs, and headlined a few festivals.

Then the group returned to the Midwest to record their fourth full-length, Dawning. But in comparison to Quietly’s thick, relentless avalanche of atmospheric noise, this record spends much more time flexing their melodic chops.

Guitarists Steve Brooks and Kevin Schindel join keyboardist Jason Watkins on vocal duties, their harmonizing clean vocals offering a counterpoint to his throaty roar. Rarely does a single voice sing on its own. Instead, the vocals are performed as a multitude, giving these already epic compositions an even more anthemic weight.

“Lullabye” opens the record with acoustic guitars and piano, giving way to molten sludge and the twisted choir of vocalists. They switch from atmospheric stillness to cathartic climax on a dime, pausing in the middle of the song to repeat, “enough is enough,” before exploding on the same refrain.

“It Swarms” contains the most abrasive and the most melodic moments on the disc. The opening verses adopt an abrasive metalcore riffage that wouldn’t be out of place coming from Norma Jean. Then the track then shifts to an arena rock barnburner, complete with a fiery guitar solo. It further transforms into a sludgy anthem, a climbing guitar riff and glistening synthesizer accompanying the soaring harmonies.

“Sharpen Your Axes” rides a skittering, uneasy riff rapidly oscillating between notes a half step apart while battle-ready drums set the march. It could almost be a radio single if it weren’t for the screamed vocals in its crushing climax.

“Patterns” is almost strictly post rock, the guitarists trading sludgy chords for agile arpeggios as a tom-heavy drumbeat and harmonizing clean vocals fill the space. When the crash finally comes, it’s more cleansing than crushing.

Closer “The Other Son” plays huge and triumphant, an arena-ready lead guitar soaring above the sludgy chords. The vocalists trade lines over a slugging riff that sounds like Black Flag on codeine. The closing moments are almost hymnlike, as jubilant as sludge metal could possible sound.

My one gripe with this album is actually with the vinyl pressing itself. Given that one side of a vinyl record can comfortably hold around 22 minutes of music and all of these songs are around eight minutes long, pressing it to wax would require a third side. This usually isn’t a big deal—tons of bands have pressed three-sided albums. Explosions in the Sky can’t seem to stay away from it.

But for whatever reason (probably budget), someone decided it would be a better move to simply remove the eleven-minute “How This Will End” from the track listing. I understand that vinyl isn’t the most forgiving format for bands with long songs (I know from experience), but simply omitting a song is an unsatisfying solution.