***On their second full-length album A Journey Through Roman's Empire ATHLETIC AUTOMATON devolve without diminishing. Songs and instrumentation alike have been reduced to key components, stripped bare of pretense until only the core remains; evaporating the distance between listener and band. This is minimalism set on heavy and trance gone sour. While deceptively simple and repetitive, the music is never rigid, never complacent or familiar. Alternately a swirl of precision, and a countercurrent of resistance, Athletic Automaton are unafraid to find virtue in the accidental, while remaining purposeful and determined.