Atmospheric landscapes of quiet introspection and beauty, broken by bouts of screaming vocals and furious - - though mix-buried - - double-bass drums and heavily distorted, indistinguishable guitar chords. If you play any song from this album after “Unskinny Bop” on your playlist, your brain and music player will shut down utterly, unable to function again. This is difficult stuff. If you put it on at a party, everyone will leave. Kinda reminiscent of 413’s “Path to Hocma” record, just more antagonistic to the listener, as if WTEIM are daring you to continue, to soldier on through their music.

I think the goal is to accurately depict a walking and climbing journey through desolation, agony, and despair. The mercy comes during the quiet moments of ambience or clean guitar. There’s also mercy in the track listing of only 5 songs, but with one exception, they’re all epic n length and breadth. “Wheeling, Endlessly Wheeling” is the title of the final song, and that should tell you everything you need to know about what you’re in for. This one features pretty female vocals, but still feels every bit as bleak as tortured as the rest.
With the End in Mind have an eye to high art of the darkest order. It’s meant to provoke - - to challenge - - to spill your expectations and comfort zone all over the rocky sands and jagged bluffs. And it succeeds. While you’re thinking, “What the hell am I listening to?” your mind and ears are being torn asunder in ways they aren’t accustomed to being opened. I don’t want to overstate it; this is not mind-blowing in the experimental, genre-defining ways of Pink Floyd or Zeppelin, it’s mind-bending in the blended concrete pour of Doom, Death, and Prog. Indulgent, for sure, but there’s artistry to the madness. If you want to put on your miner’s helmet and chisel your way through the treacherous air and winding, dark, mountain caverns.