This album features industrial clanks tempered by gentle synths. Static scores the surface of opening song "Worlds Apart". The detuned television at the beginning of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me is conjured into my mind. All seems calm, yet there lies a hysteria below the surface. I'm just expecting this seven minute song to meander to a close, when the pace picks up with a strummed acoustic guitar and more urgent synths. I wish the song started here, where the interesting stuff is.

It sounds like someone was doing the plumbing while "Still Life" was recorded. I know pipe banging has a venerable tradition in industrial music but I find it a distraction. The insistent guitar returns, backed by other electronics that would be perfect sound material for films. You could take drugs to this song, but I can't guarantee you’d have a good trip.

As I listen I realise that I am treating this album as foreground music. Despite this I find my mind wandering. Perhaps I should be using this music to fill the void while I do something else? It turns out this works much better. My attention is drawn back to the acoustic guitar on "The Weight of the World" but I let it drift into the background again.

It turns out I was half right. This music is a small part in the larger scheme. Johan Levin – the man who is Desiderii Marginis – says that he was inspired by the art of American painter Mark Rothko to explore that which is tragic and timeless. The urge to map the landmarks of our inner continents is key to understanding this album. Equally important for me is the work of another artist Viktor Kvant, who provides the stunning artwork for this album. If you have the good fortune to hear this CD I recommend you spend some time on Kvant's website (http://www.dreamhours.com/).

Kvant's images fuse with Desiderii Marginis's music to transport me to another place and time. It's a world of empty streets filled with mist, deserted city squares, forgotten statues and foreboding river sides. You can imagine the protagonist of a HP Lovecraft novel waking to find themselves in a Kafka-esque city full of nameless horrors that exist just out of plain sight, but that you think you catch from the corner of your eye.

The music features light and shade, which is essential. Unremitting bleakness just makes me want to eject the CD. Johan Levin realises that there is beauty in decay, yet that light cannot exist without the dark. Closing song "Freedom's Captive" is an evocative journey that if I were still roleplaying Call of Cuthulu would be the opening music – it would set the atmosphere of foreboding perfectly.

The music of Desiderii Marginis falls between two stools. On the one hand the music is too interesting to be ambient, but on the other, not quite exciting enough to be 'real' music. As I cannot in good faith recommend that he makes his music more boring, I can only recommend that the listener choose wisely what he or she mixes with the music. The music of Desiderii Marginis allows the listener to experience art with great intensity. If you are feeling brave, listen to this music while exploring an unknown city for the first time. Who knows what delights – or horrors – will await you around the corner?