Starting with 2006s more crusty, D beat based Owsla (‘Warrior’), then the cryptically brilliant post rock of 2007s Elil (‘Enemy’), Fall of Efrafa with Inle, (‘Death’) and their take on the writings of Richard Adams (Watership Down) have taken their vegan/social/atheist diatribes and created a climax to the trilogy that ensure the band is remembered as something truly amazing. It’s a pity they won’t get more recognition for it.

Starting with some striking spoken prose from the Watership Down novel, opener “Simulacrum”, sets the tone perfectly as it builds with tense, shimmering atmospheres before “Fu Inle” lopes into view with a somber, doomy rumble and the mood of the album and the enthralling next hour or so. While certainly rooted in the Neur-Isis genre of things, Fall of Efrafa and Inle itself, having dropped the crust is now far more varied, foreboding and different than many of their peers.

Of course, the whole ‘talking rabbits rebelling against a sadistic police state’ is the obvious element that sets Fall of Efrafa apart, but musically, their music matches the depth and intellectual approach of Adams’ writings. The menacing, almost recurrent structures that surface in the lengthy “Republic of Heaven” (14 minutes), “The Burial” (12 minutes), “Woundwort” (17 minutes) and “Warren of Snares” (17 minutes) make for a grim take on post rock even, with the expected builds, peaks and crushing peaks and angst filled roars.

So many moments of Inle are just pure, thunderous, emotive, rending genius; 6:50 into “The Republic of Heaven”, the mid section of “The Burial”, with its segue from acoustic shimmer to thunderous peak, the brooding march of “Woundwort” (the central villain of Watership Down that gave me nightmares for weeks) and the aptly paced and structured closer that brings the entire trilogy to a fitting close with a stern but epic climax.

How Fall of Efrafa have slid under the radar (at least in the US), in a time where post rock is pretty saturated with clones, is beyond me. However, with the legacy left by The Warren of Snares, especially Elil and Inle, Fall of Efrafa should be considered a short lived elite, cult act that have been taken by The Black Rabbit after delivering musical perfection.

So when I got this second album from the UK’s Fall of Efrafa , Elil, the second in a planned trilogy of albums called The Warren of Snares, loosely based on Adams’s work (the first being Owsla, which I have not heard yet and the third, Inlé, is not yet finished), I was curious to see how this group of intellectual atheists and vegans from England would fare in mixing the metaphors of Adams work within the confines of epic post rock.

In a word? Brilliant. Much like Battlefields’ Stained With the Blood of an Empire which I reviewed early in 2007, despite it coming out in 2006, this is a release that if I had heard in 2007, it’s year of release, it would have made my year end list, and it’s a release that (at least conceptually) breathes some originality to the crowded post rock/Neurosis worship scene.

Despite all the tenets of the genre being heavily handed in place (ebbing acoustic builds, huge crumbling peaks, pained roars, etc), Fall of Efrafa, with Battlefields again being a sonic comparison deliver 3, twenty minute songs that are expansive, enthralling pieces that imbue all the elements of tangible peers from gently building acoustics and haunting atmospherics (God Speed! You Black Emperor), huge, draining, mountainous riffs (Isis, Neurosis) and even D- beat crust. All three tracks have a similar formula that includes all the above, just mixed in at various times as well as some well placed spoken word (from Adam’s work I assume).

Opener “Beyond the Veil” has six minutes of repetitive but hypnotic build, before crescendo-ing into a thunderous hardcore gallop for its mid section and a suitably epic climax. Second track “Dominion Theology” puts the hardcore canter nearer the beginning, and is overall the albums most introspective, evocative track with chord progressions and textures that hit you right in the soul. Closer “For El Ahraihrah to Cry” has a somber, draining first few moments before developing into a surprisingly uplifting metalcore gallop, before ending with a suitably majestic yet despondent closure.

Where most albums of this genre often bleed into one long track, Elil, while not on The Ocean levels of ambitiousness, is a gem of a record from a unassuming and eloquent band that has a grasp of the genre while injecting their own unique themes and characters. I mean how many post rock records are about rabbits?

Amazing stuff.