The last album released by Australia’s Mournful Congregation, 2011’s The Book Of Kings, was my favorite record of that year (and my review of the album for Invisible Oranges remains the best thing I wrote during my tenure at the site). It’s a contemplative, elegant, accomplished suite of songs; even in a funeral-doom subgenre that regularly achieves beauty through pathos (or vice-versa), The Book Of Kings dealt in an unusually painterly grace: It seemed to derive from Pink Floyd rather than Black Sabbath. This year, the band is returning with a two-song EP, Concrescence Of The Sophia, to coincide with a small handful of very rare Stateside tour dates — four shows in all, the first time the band has ever played the East Coast. At two songs and roughly 30 minutes, Concrescence Of The Sophia is a decidedly brief work for Mournful Congregation (by contrast, The Book Of Kings is four songs, nearly 77 minutes long). But it’s impossible not to be awed by the power and dexterity displayed throughout the EP, especially on the 21:42 title track, which is as still and dark as the ocean floor — and as magisterial and mysterious, too. We’ve got the EP for you to listen to in full today, and it comes with my absolute highest recommendation. Listen, and check out those tour dates, below.

Mournful Congregation American tour dates:

06/27 Brooklyn, NY @ Martyrdoom Fest @ Saint Vitus Bar

06/28 Baltimore, MD @ The Sidebar Tavern

06/30 Worcester, MA @ Ralphs Rock Diner

07/01 Brooklyn, NY @ Martyrdoom Fest @ Saint Vitus Bar

Concrescence Of The Sophia is out 6/24 via 20 Buck Spin.