Dear Desolation is the fourth studio album by Australian deathcore band Thy Art Is Murder. The album was released on 18 August 2017 by Nuclear Blast. It is vocalist CJ McMahon's first album with Thy Art Is Murder since his reunion with the band in January 2017. Following the release of their third full-length album Holy War in 2015, vocalist Chris “CJ” McMahon left the band. In January 2017, the band announced McMahon's return to the band and released the stand-alone single 'No Absolution' (a B-side from the Holy War recording sessions) as part of the announcement. McMahon stated that he had cleaned up his issues with cocaine dependence and cannabis use disorder and had also married. As a result, Dear Desolation is McMahon's first album with Thy Art Is Murder since his departure in late 2015. The album received generally positive reviews from music critics. Exclaim! described the album as "the band's strongest album to date", and noted the band's stylistic growth in moving away from deathcore towards a more traditional death metal sound inspired by bands like Behemoth and Cannibal Corpse. Metal Hammer praised McMahon's vocal performance, and wrote that though the album is "short on the penetrative hooks that Holy War possessed in abundance, Into Chaos We Climb and The Final Curtain's seismic jolts and haunting leads leave an indelible mark for deathcore disciples to latch onto." User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms ma