amazon-ascendDrone and doom collide with a refreshingly regal tone reverberating throughout on the latest offering from the titanic tandem Ascend. Featuring no strangers to things that creep in the night (Greg Anderson and Gentry Densely), AMPLE FIRE WITHIN is a six-track love affair with the slow and deliberate, meshing knee-buckling tempos, hefty guitars and left of center instrumental flourishes such as trombone and Wurlitzer (“Dark Matter”) with both obligatory and obscure textures rounding out its foreboding crush while unleashing the wrath of slithering cobras (“V.O.G.”). Aided by some interesting cameos (including Kim Thayil of Soundgarden) while boldly interjecting a broader musical scope into their weighty thump and thud, this well-decorated exercise in sheer excess provides lovers of massive ambience a shiny new toy to play with. www.southernlord.comMike SOS