Overmars's first tracks are melodic yet crushing, vaguely industrial in its heaviness and repetitive machine-like rhythms, but with an organic feel. In other words, it�s a lot like what was on YOB's Catharsis. From there, the band continues to create atmospheric doom that speaks to both man and machine. Fugue�s first song is a moody piece of sludge, with anguished vocals screaming over dire riffs. It�s similar to what was on Crowbar�s Equilibrium. It�s an open wound of a song. The other three tracks they contribute follow in this vein, leading one to wonder what happened to the band to make their music sound so dire. With Isis creating more epic-style music, veering away from the hardcore qualities of their earlier work, and Crowbar between albums, this split is recommended for anyone in search of new but familiar music. It�s a head crusher of an album. Plus, the packaging is well done and matches the creativity of the music.

Overmars is incredibly good at what they do, keeping the atmosphere consistent and injecting a noticeably larger amount of melody into their compositions, not to mention tastefully manipulating synths and noise textures. Overmars is able to keep the tempos fairly consistent and moderate without allowing the songs to get boring. Things can sound the same at times, but they're always layering and throwing in subtle shifts that keep it interesting and moving. The percussion is dry and natural, the bass tone is monolithic even when distorted, the guitars are absolutely menacing in heaviness, the gruff vocal shouts are mixed well, etc. It's very crisp and dense, no detail seems to be lost, and everything forms a tight unit.

Fugue's four tracks are raw, atmospheric, similarly dark music that shifts from rugged distortion to slightly edgy clean guitars with all sorts of gruff vocals that range from yelling to screaming and speaking or rough singing. Some of their riffs and vocal combinations remind me a hell of a lot of Crowbar. They tend to play fairly slow, with lots of drawn out instrumental passages.

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