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The Troops of Doom took the underground by storm with their debut EP, The Rise of Heresy, an album that perfectly emulated and arguably outclassed early Sepultura in a way that only former Sepultura guitarist and leader Jairo "Tormentor" Braga could. They basically became an overnight sensation afterwards, with many fans (myself included) eagerly awaiting their first full-length, so it makes sense that they'd release this brief EP to help keep the anticipation steady.

The Absence of Light opens with the creeping instrumental title track that sets the tone perfectly for the first real song, "Act I – The Devil's Tail." If you heard the last album, you know what you're getting here: raw aggression and blistering energy that's all very well composed in spite of that, so much so that this could have easily been on Schizophrenia back when Sepultura were conquering the world. "Act II – Monarch" takes more inspiration from Celtic Frost and Slayer and kills just as hard with piercing riffs and stellar guest vocals from Jeff Becerra that echo throughout the song, giving the song a delightful touch of venom. The rest of the EP is made up of a cover of the Sepultura song "Antichrist" and demo versions of existing tracks "The Devil's Tail" and "The Monarch." The former is basically just an update to the original that proves Braga was essential to the band's early work and understands it better than anyone, but the latter tracks are just OK, certainly not as good as the proper versions, and really just here to pad out the runtime.

Overall, this doesn't have the spine-snapping malice of The Rise of Heresy, but that's probably intentional. That was meant to announce the second coming of one of Metal's overlooked geniuses while The Absence of Light is meant to tide fans over before the next album comes out, and I can say that it accomplishes that perfectly. If you just can't wait to hear more The Troops of Doom, this will do nicely until the full-length is out.