On As Time Awaits (February 27), Unburier navigates the friction between old-school grit and technical accuracy and the addition of Kim Hughes on drums helps facilitate that accuracy with a restless energy that anchors the EP. It allows the music to move with a speed that feels both frantic and entirely under control.

Just three tracks, the EP opens “Continuum,” where the band sets a tone of uneasy reflection. Instead of relying on a constant wall of noise, the track uses a groovier foundation and fretless bass lines to pull one into a narrative about the collapse of belief. The sense of internal rot deepens on “Abyssal Uncertainty” where the guitars twist through a series of rapid shifts that mirror a descent into madness as the bass acts as a bridge between the chaotic riffs and the precision of the percussion. It’s a track that captures the exhaustion of being trapped in someone else’s machine by using a surge of aggression to articulate a yearning for autonomy.

By the time “Survive the Vermin” closes the EP, the band has moved from psychological dread into a full-scale cosmic confrontation. The vocal delivery from Ben Champion shifts between growls and howls by punctuating a story about the cost of total devotion to a single cause. It’s a blunt and vibrating conclusion that asks what is left of a person once they’ve sacrificed everything for a purpose.

As Time Awaits is heavy, unvarnished, and full of intent.