Review: With The End In Mind – Tides Of Fire

With The End in Mind’s “Tides of Fire” is a colossal undertaking, a blackened ritual crawling from the Pacific Northwest’s rain-soaked soil. Across three extended compositions – totalling nearly 48 minutes – the band attempts to ignite both personal and planetary collapse into something transcendent. It’s a record heavy with ambition, thunderous in execution, and yet, at times, uncertain of its own path.

The sound here is dense and ceremonial. The use of two live drum kits is more than a gimmick—it becomes the spine of the entire record. Tribal rhythms pulse and pummel, evoking some half-remembered war-dance in the dying light. When the full ensemble locks in, especially during the latter half of “Set the Cavernous Soul Alight”, the experience is overwhelming, immersive, and almost liturgical. There’s a palpable sense that this is music made not just for performance, but for offering—something burnt and laid at the feet of ancient gods.

But for all its fire, the album struggles with clarity. The production favours atmosphere over definition, which lends the ambient sections a warm, shrouded glow, but muddies the more intense black metal passages. Furious tremolo and desperate shrieks sometimes blur into a formless mass. This isn’t entirely inappropriate and at times it suits the themes of dissolution and elemental rage, but it also makes for a wearying listen.

Where the band risks most, they sometimes falter. “May the Name of Truth be Fire” delivers seven minutes of spoken-word incantation over slow-burning percussion. It’s a bold gesture, and while it resonates with ritualistic gravity, its momentum flags halfway through. The message is powerful, but perhaps too bluntly delivered to sustain its length. Elsewhere, the songwriting follows familiar Cascadian black metal arcs: ambient calm builds to storm, collapses, rises again. It’s effective, but it’s also expected. You can hear echoes of Wolves in the Throne Room, Agalloch, and even Panopticon, but rarely does the band fully shake off those shadows.

The closing piece, “Returning, Reclaiming”, is the strongest. Despite its 22-minute sprawl, it feels the most confident in its pacing. The interplay between fragile melodies and punishing eruptions is nuanced and well-earned. If the rest of the album occasionally wanders, this track finds its footing and keeps it.

“Tides of Fire” is a sincere and formidable work, forged in the ashes of ecological grief and personal catharsis. Yet it’s also hampered by overfamiliar tropes and indulgent pacing. The flame burns real, but not without smoke.