When I heard Justin Vernon (of Bon Iver) and Colin Stetson, a multi instrumentalist who has worked with Bon Iver, Arcade Fire and many others in addition to his solo work, had collaborated on a cover of Fink‰’s “Warm Shadow,‰” I knew that a storm was brewing.

Within 12 seconds I was completely enraptured. Stetson, a man who has mastered the saxophone, is known for producing a superhuman amount of noise from a single instrument. Utilizing techniques such as circular breathing and some sort of guttural voice control, Stetson can create leads, bass and percussion all at once, without any looping or layering. On this particular track he replaces Fink‰’s plucked acoustic guitar introduction with a sinister galloping build that is both menacing and majestic. The cacophony grows and nearly explodes before dropping back down to almost nothing, and Justin Vernon‰’s flawless vocals cut through the atmosphere of the track with commanding dominance. Stetson‰’s finger-clicking against the keys becomes more audible and the drone develops as Vernon attacks the melody with the control and power of a demigod, gone berserk.

A second vocal layer joins the first and the song takes flight. The emotion of Stetson‰’s chaos is matched only by Vernon‰’s solid vocals and the two components dance around each other like fighter jets in an aerial battle. A deep pulsing sub comes in and hits every beat with vigor. While it sounds like this noise may be coming from Stetson‰’s instrument, it seems almost impossible that he could be doing so many things at once. The sparse instrumentation hardly feels scant because of intense depth created by both men. Stetson‰’s frantic sax runs and Vernon‰’s wails ascend for what seems like forever, their abilities dead even and bursting with passion. The coarse whirring of Stetson‰’s saxophone is an atomic bomb, detonating and then imploding so frequently it feels the way an Armageddon would sound. Vernon‰’s post-apocalyptic swooning push and pull throughout and finally drop out right at the end when Stetson releases a final scream into his saxophone mouthpiece and the drone fades into nothingness.

The feeling of this song is extremely visceral and harsh. The sax is dense and the vocals glide over them with a sharpness that the original version lacks. If you‰’ve ever seen the original PokÌ©mon TV series, there‰’s a moment during the opening theme song where a Charizard and a Blastoise are attacking each other with fire and water, respectively. The Fire Blast hurled from Charizard‰’s mouth and the Hydropump from Blastoise‰’s cannons collide and are equal and unyielding. The constant streams of fire and water are of identical strength and neither falters, creating a spectacle of true intensity. That‰’s what this cover is. Colin Stetson‰’s scorching volatile sax-playing strikes Vernon‰’s chilling, liquid vocals, and form a wall of sound so robust I get perpetual chills. The way Colin and Justin reinvent Fink‰’s song from an edgy folk ballad to a frighteningly dark and poignant soundscape is inspiring, mind blowing and nearly overwhelming. These dudes are absolute musical powerhouses and this cover, is above all a tease, leaving me desperate and hoping that this is just the beginning of Vernon/Stetson Collaboration.