An intentional homage to the world of horror literature and film, Night Mute is Ativin's ten song exploration into the themes of death, hopelessness, and fear. On it, the band has created a concise and harrowing sonic vision rooted in their trademark foundation of dirge and repetition of the guitar/guitar/drums. With emphasis placed on deconstructing the music back to its barest elements, the band has pulled away from the "spacious" and cinematic side of the Summing the Approach EP and last year's Interiors. Song titles and lyrical content reinforce the notion that this could be a subtle, disconnected soundtrack for terminally ill patients lying in wait behind closed doors. Guitarists and songwriters Dan Burton and Chris Carothers relish in the deconstruction of their own music. "Night Terror", "Drink This", "Concentrate" and "Blood" are each meticulously honed razorblade attacks nodding to a return to the Ativin of yore - angular instrumental rockers like those on which the band waged war on earlier albums. The addition of expert, marksmen style drumming from Mark Rice (the Impossible Shapes, John Wilkes Booze) propels Burton's and Carothers' spiraling, schizophrenic guitar interplay into a nightmare space where few, if any, musical acts have gone before. Taking a look at Ativin's sordid past, one will see that there is more to their music then the late '90s post rock explosion from whence they came. In fact, Night Mute shows a stake in the divergent corners of the outsider canon. Echoes of Durutti Column, Unsane, Tones On Tail, Keiji Haino, and Organum can be heard throughout. Their sober take of the early Love & Rockets tune "The Game", for instance, finds Burton front & center at the microphone, slowly reeling in on what feels like a Philip K. Dick gothic folktale.
