{"title":"Crucial Blast Records","description":"\u003cp\u003eCrucial Blast Records\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c!----\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"american-werewolves-vhs-cassette","title":"American Werewolves VHS cassette","description":"\u003cp\u003eAmerican Werewolves VHS cassette\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCrucial Blast Video is proud to partner with Small Town Monsters to present this limited VHS videocassette of 2022’s AMERICAN WEREWOLVES, bringing this strange amalgam of regional cryptoid docudrama a la LEGEND OF BOGGY CREEK, surrealistic 80’s shot-on-video horror, and UNSOLVED MYSTERIES \/ SIGHTINGS-esque, made-for-tv production aesthetics to eerie analogue for the first time.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis videocassette comes with a 32-page booklet that features two new essays (\"Witness To The Hyper-Feral\" and \"There Is Something In The Corn\"), a brand-new interview with AMERICAN WEREWOLVES director Seth Breedlove, behind-the-scenes production photos, exclusive artwork, and more.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNTSC video format. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c!----\u003e","brand":"Crucial Blast Records","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49552828629284,"sku":"","price":21.75,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/2606\/0952\/files\/img385.jpg?v=1720112135"},{"product_id":"darsombra-dumesday-book-2xcassette","title":"Darsombra – Dumesday Book 2xCassette","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/bandcamp.com\/EmbeddedPlayer\/album=564638873\/size=small\/bgcol=ffffff\/linkcol=0687f5\/transparent=true\/\" style=\"border: 0; width: 100%; height: 42px;\"\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDarsombra – Dumesday Book 2xCassette\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDarsombra’s “Dumesday Book” is a whopping seventy-five minutes of sonic revelry, to \u003cbr\u003edelight and confound both seasoned Darsombra listeners and unwitting new ears alike. \u003cbr\u003eOriginally conceived as a surreal take on a pop album to contrast with their ominously \u003cbr\u003eprescient monolithic 2019 release, “Transmission”, 2023’s “Dumesday Book” is a ten\u003cbr\u003esong survey of sentiment and human experience in the pandemic, from initial lockdown \u003cbr\u003eto vaccinated re-emergence and beyond—which, in the Darsombra microcosm, means \u003cbr\u003efrom cancelled tours to returning to the road. Fittingly, the band wrote the framework for the album during the quarantine of spring 2020, and then tirelessly refined it over the \u003cbr\u003enext three years.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003cbr\u003eAt times bizarre, intense, mollifying, sardonic, irreverent, overwhelming, and hopeful, \u003cbr\u003e“Dumesday Book” takes its name from the 11th century census book that served as the \u003cbr\u003eoldest public record in the English language, Domesday Book—so named because its \u003cbr\u003edecisions were unalterable, its sentence was law, and its survey of human activity so \u003cbr\u003ecomplete. The album’s sound follows the theme of survey as well, with glam-prog \u003cbr\u003efrivolity giving way to heavy psych doomscapes laden with music concrète field \u003cbr\u003erecordings. A bong rip takes you from a disconcerting chord progression to a goblin \u003cbr\u003edoggerel dirge, all to resolve into a space-shimmery synthcapade laced with heart\u003cbr\u003efuelled guitar riffs worthy of any Krautrockian nod for a non-Teutonic band. Of course, \u003cbr\u003ethere are serious moments of ROCK woven throughout this hour-and-change-long \u003cbr\u003emusical journey, but to typify “Dumesday Book” as simply drone, or metal, or psych—or \u003cbr\u003eeven prog—is missing the point.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c!----\u003e","brand":"Crucial Blast Records","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49552903569700,"sku":"","price":15.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/2606\/0952\/files\/darsomdumes.jpg?v=1720113797"},{"product_id":"gasket-noumenal-field-recordings-tierra-y-voluntad-land-and-will-cassette","title":"Gasket – Noumenal Field Recordings \/ Tierra Y Voluntad (Land And Will) cassette","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/bandcamp.com\/EmbeddedPlayer\/album=839805104\/size=small\/bgcol=ffffff\/linkcol=0687f5\/transparent=true\/\" style=\"border: 0; width: 100%; height: 42px;\"\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGasket – Noumenal Field Recordings \/ Tierra Y Voluntad (Land And Will) cassette\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"A pairing of the first demo and unreleased mania from these Texan freaks. Imagine a garage-level blast of brutal noisecore, Harry Pussy-esque noise rock, raw early 80's hardcore, and a dose of Brainbombs \/ GG Allin-level punk barbarity. These guys are no joke.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis self-described \"garage band\" from McAllen, Texas showed up on my radar earlier this year and comprehensively smashed my skull into fragments. Looking back at the Youtube upload that the band did for their debut Noumenal Field Recordings EP (released online at the very end of 2022), I had commented the following: \"...holy fucking shit, is this awesome. Like someone crammed early Sore Throat, Harry Pussy, and The Stooges into a malfunctioning Cuisinart. I'm in heaven .\". You know what? I'm still in heaven.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBut in the meantime, sink your teeth into this hunk of rotted meat. The Noumenal Field Recordings EP hits physical media for the first time here, paired with the previously unreleased Tierra Y Voluntad (Land And Will) EP, and both sides of this machine will fuck you right up. Just like I spewed all over that video comment section months ago, Noumenal Field Recordings rips through eleven songs of blown-out aggression that effortlessly walk the line between classic early 80s three-chord hardcore and heavy doses of Brainbombs \/ GG Allin - level sludge-punk barbarity that you can smell from here. Onto that feral sonic assault, the band wields feedback-screaming slabs of freeform noise rock in the Harry Pussy vein, blurts of brain-damaged Casio weirdness, obnoxiously catchy hooks, and barbs of clotted noisecore that hit and run faster than you can even try to catch the plates. This shit is no joke, even when it sounds like the band is having an absolute blast. That first EP is so ugly, so mangled, so fucked up, and yet so weirdly literate, with nods to Nick Land, Marx and Thoreau. The lyrics are fantastic, too. Which is doubly confusional since it seems that these songs were written on the spot, recorded live and apparently totally off-the-cuff and improvised in that aforementioned McAllen garage. Blows me away.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd that B-side Tierra Y Voluntad (Land And Will) is even weirder and more scathing. More shit-fi droning HC and shreiking, bloodthirsty vocals collide with bizarre backing roars and inexplicable noise, sampled speeches giving way to boombox-grade ur-punk, every riff and every bass note sounding like it'll give you tetanus if you scratch yourself on 'em, the drumming weirdly mixed with an echoing effect (perhaps simply due to the utterly and awesomely atrocious recording approach. Fleeting moments of lobotomized thrash break apart against shrill noisecore that goes so hard at 1,000 mile per hour velocity that it all turns into a delicious mush, only for another one of Gasket's wickedly catchy hooks to stumble out of the carnage. That side culminates with the unholy power electronics \/ improvised destruction of \"Hole In The Head\", a previously stand-alone track from Gasket that I begged them to include on this slab. Like I said, I'm in fuckin' heaven...\" - Crucial Blast\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c!----\u003e","brand":"Crucial Blast Records","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49623034822948,"sku":"","price":9.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/2606\/0952\/files\/gasket.jpg?v=1721319293"},{"product_id":"cultic-seducer-cassette","title":"Cultic - Seducer cassette","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/bandcamp.com\/EmbeddedPlayer\/album=453325651\/size=small\/bgcol=ffffff\/linkcol=0687f5\/transparent=true\/\" style=\"border: 0; width: 100%; height: 42px;\"\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCultic - Seducer cassette\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Man, I was immediately obsessed with Cultic as soon as I heard 'em; their 2019 debut album High Command stomped me into the dirt with its visions of dark epic fantasy and primal death\/doom. That album demonstrated Cultic's sure hand at grinding you into dust, their sound grounded in a fetid mixture of classic 1980s heavy metal, primitive death metal, Hellhammer \/ Celtic Frost, and a smattering of barbaric hardcore punk. But that pummeling style was elevated by its use of electronics, weird effects and post-industrial elements, turning their already sufficiently crushing and filthy death churn into something stranger, spacier, more otherworldly, perfectly encapsulating the feel and atmosphere that emanates from the band's stunning original artwork (from drummer Rebecca Magar, a talented visual artist and the force behind the art\/design house Wailing Wizard). Fiery dragons and clashing medieval armies, eldritch monoliths and sinister sorcery - Cultic's album art evoked everything that I loved about the darker fantasy novels I read in my youth, backed by atomic hammer riffs, scowling vocals, vintage synthesizers, and dark martial bombast. That album and its 2022 follow-up Of Fire and Sorcery (both released on the band's own Eleventh Key label) featured a raw assault of vaguely psychedelic mid-paced Morbid Tales-damaged deathsludge, and from the early demos through to the latest album, Cultic has followed a contorted upward trajectory into ever-heavier, more down tuned riff-laden primacy.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn 2023, the band released the two-song Seducer EP through Eleventh Key. With new bassist Andrew Harris (also of Baltimore trad doom heavyweights Alms) joining the husband-and-wife team of Brian (vocals \/ guitar) and Rebecca (drums) Magar, these guys sounded more embittered, lustful, and just plain violent than ever. Ancient synths and gorgeous dark ambience, ethereal female vocals, and mesmeric dungeon industrial starts off the title track, then pulls the rug out from under you as the trio lunge out of the shadows with one of their heaviest riffs ever. The awesome screams and mocking, acid-tinged roars melt into the atavistic spaced-out doom-death as \"Seducer\" lumbers through more of those killer Moogy electronics and weird effects. It's ridiculously heavy in spite off all the bizarre hallucinatory audio swirling around. Then \"Seduced\" bathes you in eve more lush, grim keyboard sounds, the most kosmische kind of dungeon synth bliss, and once again the band scatters that bleary ether when they drop into another fucking scuzzy, spine-bending hunk of slo-mo death metal . It's terrific. These two songs have better production than previous recordings, while maintaining their raw, caustic filthiness. If these two tracks are indicative of what Cultic's next album is going to be like, god help us.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis expanded version of the band's Seducer EP includes the early demo version of \"Seduced\" which has its own alternate electronic charms, and reveals a much more primitive, caveman vision of that song. Like hearing early Cathedral jamming in some rickety, oil-stained garage, soused out of their gourds on dextromethorphan. It's rad. On the B-side, this release features several bonus tracks: first is the two-song Prowler demo from 2017, recorded when the band was just the original duo of Brian and Rebecca. Their first-ever recording, previously released on a now out-of-print CDR, Prowler sounds fully formed, just more raw and low-fi, and without the electronic elements that would later develop into their current sound. These two songs are crushers, \"Cruel Orders\" and \"The Prowler\" delivering those signature dark fantasy lyrics, trippy grunting vocals, and knuckle-dragging doom-death. In addition, the EP is rounded out by a feral 2018 live recording of \"Conqueror\" that unleashes the band's full war-wrath, and circles back around with a killer live 2019 recording of \"Seducer\" that's stripped down to its bulldozing basics.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNearly forty minutes of primo gargantuan Gamma World barbarian death metal. So for an \"EP\", this Crucial Blast reissue crams in the goods. It's also beautifully designed by the band themselves: Seducer boasts more of Rebecca's striking, Frazetta-esque artwork, which perfectly captures the carnal violence of this music. It's one of the coolest looking tapes we've put out over here yet. I can't express how stoked I am to be working with this band, as I've been a longtime fan of the couple's work, both Rebecca's fantastic art and Brian's previous musical dark arts in the ritual black ambient \/ doom-drone outfits The Owls Are Not What They Seem and Layr. Can't recommend this band enough.\" - Crucial Blast\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c!----\u003e","brand":"Crucial Blast Records","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49623043342628,"sku":"","price":9.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/2606\/0952\/files\/cultic.jpg?v=1721319520"},{"product_id":"boredom-knife-stalker-cassette","title":"Boredom Knife – Stalker cassette","description":"\u003ciframe style=\"border: 0; width: 100%; height: 42px;\" src=\"https:\/\/bandcamp.com\/EmbeddedPlayer\/album=3392746866\/size=small\/bgcol=ffffff\/linkcol=0687f5\/transparent=true\/\" seamless\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eBoredom Knife – Stalker cassette\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Finnish musician Marko Neuman has been busy as hell lately. I'd been following his work previously via the assorted high-grade bands he has been in (Dark Buddha Rising, Overdose Support, Sum Of R, Ural Umbo, Waste Of Space Orchestra). But until very recently, I hadn't heard his noise project Boredom Knife. It made an impact on me, though. Checking out previous releases like the split with Crepuscular Entity ‎on Basement Corner Emissions or the Your Pain Is Getting Worse tape on Bent Window introduced me to a cruel, cold strain of harsh noise, a form of deep-field black static, flecked with elements of power electronics and K2-style junk-avalanche. I was already getting deep into it when Neuman sent me his latest recording, Stalker\u003cbr\u003e.\u003cbr\u003eThis twenty-three-minute release pairs two corresponding pieces, \"Envy\" and \"Snap\", the first a long and winding chaos-channel into the doom-laden intensity of the second. The atmosphere around this release is felt in the cold stare, the mindless gaze, and the resulting vortex of emotional destruction that was written in the postures of celestial forms long before the final act of exterminating envy and dominance occurred. Lines cut through the star-map of lethal obsession. The predetermined hunt.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBoredom Knife's Stalker emits a cold, piercing gaze instantly, the first side \"Envy\" churning out a dense wall of hollowed-out drones, black static, bursts of corrosive hiss, and strange pulse-like rhythms buried deep within the core of this ghostly noisescape. While there's much to digest here for enthusiasts of the \"wall\", Neuman produces something much more complex and dramatic. Feedback and speaker-rumble are carefully probed and manipulated, vicious high frequency noise expressed through rivers of metallic skree that are easy to drown in. That first track gradually and deliberately evolves from the mechanical whirr, junk-style clatter, and mangled (but weirdly melodious) carnage at the beginning, morphing into a steady field of layered screech and endless hum, sharpened metal scrape and clusters of bizarre, almost subliminal gurgling that continue to resurface throughout the track. It conjures a hypnotic, possibly psychedelic state of sonic overwhelm, each layer of cruel noise obsessively carved and sculpted into a latter half of near-complete roar, before it finally circles back to a final stretch of rhythmic squelch, immutable drone, and hideous shattered distortion that resolves into a final noxious junk-loop at the end.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis brief bit of structured noise is instantly obliterated with the onset of the b-side \"Snap\". Everything is sucked inward, imploding in a vast mass of roaring, raging static. Some semblance of the humanity heard on the previous track is dragged to the surface and obliterated. This piece concludes Stalker with a blast of oppressive, dominating black static that remains almost constant over the entire runtime. Bits of machinelike jitter, traces of peripheral musicality, horrifying shrieks, it is all swirling inward, into itself, this titanic maelstrom of over-modulated electronics and eerie voice-like entities, teeth-grinding distortion, and covert structures of sound, all going down the drain FOREVER. This is where the EP *really* turns into something psychedelic, affecting your senses and your perception of the space around you as that chaos keeps seething and spinning, occasionally shooting out chunks of strange sonic debris and whiplash tentacles of high-end feedback. And then, for the first time, a volley of fearsome shrieks and howls come flying out of that chaos, incomprehensible screams of abject horror. Just for a moment, those nightmare distorted vocals blow your hair back, and it all suddenly collapses into itself, leaving you with a brief moment of deadened electrical thrum before it abruptly stops.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI've listened to a number of Boredom Knife releases, and while much of his material shares this tenacious sadism and auditory blast-violence, this one gives me the CREEPS, man. Stalker finds that blood-specked middle ground between the gargantuan murderous PE of Slogun, and the obliterating heaviosity of classic harsh noise.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c!----\u003e","brand":"Crucial Blast Records","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49623047930148,"sku":"","price":9.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/2606\/0952\/files\/bkstalker.jpg?v=1721319739"},{"product_id":"tombhammer-sprecher-des-omnibus-der-ewigkeit-cassette","title":"Tombhammer – Sprecher Des Omnibus Der Ewigkeit cassette","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/bandcamp.com\/EmbeddedPlayer\/album=1322500752\/size=small\/bgcol=ffffff\/linkcol=0687f5\/transparent=true\/\" style=\"border: 0; width: 100%; height: 42px;\"\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTombhammer – Sprecher Des Omnibus Der Ewigkeit cassette\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"\u003cspan\u003eFor nearly a decade, Gregorio Franco has been a steadily rising force in the field of dark, aggressive synthesizer music, producing some of the most innovative and full-on heavy \"synth metal\" you're gonna find in the underground music scene.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eOne of the most prominent faces in the field of what is generally referred to as darksynth, Franco has traversed similar dystopian badlands as Carpenter Brut and Perturbator. But where he deviates is the unique addition of an impenitent death metal influence; where other contemporary synth artists are often content to peddle the same 'ol pastel-hued VHS-era aesthetics and \"outrun\" sounds, Franco injects bulldozing guitar tones reminiscent of Bolt Thrower and the Swedish death metal underground, alongside an ultra heavy synth-bass attack and brutalizing rhythmic power that's directly descended from industrial metal's most violent drum programming. Franco's music feels more suited to a war zone than a dance floor, and in fact has the ability to turn one into the other. And his creative flow is endless; along with a multitude of albums and EPs that stretch back to 2013, his Bandcamp account is constantly updated with unique covers of synth-pop classics and video game soundtracks alike.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eUnder the Tombhammer banner, Franco now expands his\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"bcTruncateMore\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003esound into even deeper, heavier territory. His electronic influences are obvious, ath their core consistently paying homage to the classic sounds of early John Carpenter, vintage Tangerine Dream \/ Klaus Schulze, and the darkest of neon-drenched 80s-era film soundtracks. But with Tombhammer, Franco further incorporates a specific side of his metal background for the project. Heavily informed by the tone and feel of Nightfall-era Candlemass, the lugubrious funeral doom of Australia's Mournful Congregation, and the peculiar blackened orchestrations and apocalyptic resonance of Urfaust circa-Verräterischer, Nichtswürdiger Geist and Geist ist Teufel, Franco's guitar work and songcraft evokes the tangled black roots of graveyard trees, the blinding glare of a nuclear-red sun at twilight, the oceanic emptiness of an uncaring omniverse, and the deepest abysses of human grief. This stuff is genuinely heart-wrenching with its cold, dark beauty and oppressive emotional depth. Somber. Sonorous. Man, these songs moved me.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePairing the song \"Sprecher des Omnibus der Ewigkeit\" from the online digital demo MMXXIII with a brand-new exclusive B-side track \"Bereiche Magischen Leids\", this EP is the official debut release from the mighty Tombhammer. Together, it almost feels like part of a score to a previously unknown Panos Cosmatos film. The first, \"\"Sprecher\" (roughly translated from the German to \"Speaker of the Omnibus of Eternity\"), stretches out to the razor-thin light dying on the horizon line, immediately casting you into a sumptuous and billowing cloud of black- fluorescent synthesizer. When that riff comes in, the complimentary effect is crushing. I was in love with this as soon as it kicked in. Cinematic synth-doom? Soaring, darkly romantic doomwave? Forget all that, \"Sprecher\" simply pulverizes with a perfect blending of electronic texture and bone-smashing doom.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSomewhere, some film director should be scrambling to find Franco's contact info because this is one of the best unmade film scores I've ever heard. The middle section where the cinderblock guitars die away and we are adrift in clouds of swirling ashen particulate? Gorgeous. The moment when that devastator of a riff comes flowing back in like a river of black magma? Punishing. This instrumental crush is as emotionally weighted and mournfully ethereal as the best late 80s \/ early 90s UK \/ European doom metal, and just as memorable. The B-side \"Bereiche Magischen Leids\" was recorded exclusively for this EP release, and shifts the experience more towards the electronic side of the spectrum. It is just as cyclopean in scope. Again, a curtain is dropped on an immense black void, luminous drones driving into the infinite, a menacing guitar melody uncoiling in the depths. A synth-drenched hint of Peaceville-style slow-motion dread sprawling outward, everywhere. And it builds. And builds. Attracting molten matter to the slow spinning iron core and amassing itself into a kind of ambient metal spheroid, swirling black guitar drone and eerie doom-laden melody and grinding synth all bearing down on you like the shadow of a newly birthed black sun. An amorphous elegy as counterpart to the previous trudge through majestic misery.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt rolls over you, somewhat like the darker work of Jóhann Jóhannsson, seeded with the glacial melodic style of guitarist Andrew Craighan. One hell of a debut.\"\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c!----\u003e","brand":"Crucial Blast Records","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49658650231076,"sku":"","price":9.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/2606\/0952\/files\/tombhammer.jpg?v=1721918038"},{"product_id":"cremation-grounds-abortion-sacrament-cassette","title":"Cremation Grounds – Abortion Sacrament cassette","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/bandcamp.com\/EmbeddedPlayer\/album=248929563\/size=small\/bgcol=ffffff\/linkcol=0687f5\/transparent=true\/\" style=\"border: 0; width: 100%; height: 42px;\"\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCremation Grounds – Abortion Sacrament cassette\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Similar to the recent online-only (thus far) release of the long-thought-lost CREMATION GROUNDS full-length \"Lord Of Nerves\", the 20-minute EP \"Abortion Sacrament\" is another recording that was produced in the late 2000s and had been thought lost for fifteen years due to the destruction of the hard drive that contained the original masters.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAs part of a recent organizing effort here at Crucial Blast, almost all of these recordings were recently rescued from that cursed external drive, and have been resurrected for your listening displeasure.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe three-track \"Abortion Sacrament\" EP is the very first release that Cremation Grounds recorded around 2008-2009, and like other recordings of the era, dislodges a bog-damn of insanely misanthropic black noise, buried no-fi industrial noise-sludge, crushing harsh-noise-wall style constructions, and an overdriven recording style that may well have been itself the cause of that hard drive's suffering and collapse. Again, the gist of these tracks is pure in-the-red evil electronic obliteration, much of it crafted by the entities behind Cremation Grounds as a kind of \"meditation through abomination\" strategy, utilizing the recordings for deep meditative sessions typically accompanied by entheogens, psychedelics (both natural and otherwise), acts of self-debasement and self-abuse, scatalogical ritual, and the disintegration of the ego in the churning jet-black oceans of searing distortion and low-end rumbling rot that dominate the sessions.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Abortion Sacrament\" does not have quite as much of the molten scum-dirge that is found on the \"Lord Of Nerves\" full-length. But these three tracks make up for it in all-out sense-wrecking chaos and over-modulated electronic violence. Drums, vocals and percussion all exist within the roiling black-static detonations of the title track and \"Spread Wide Upon Her Cremation Grounds (Adorned In Bone Ornaments)\", but they have been destroyed completely by walls of crumbling, crackling electronic distortion, with the occasional muffled roar of guttural, monstrous vocalizations breaking through the carnage.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAs with the album, this material skews hard towards the harsh noise \/ black noise end of the sound spectrum, but likewise takes a great deal of inspiration from the diabolic filth of ancient, dissolving Finnish black \/ demos. This sonic abhorrence crawls before the cracked and damaged altars of Macronympha, the no-fi bestial hiss of the earliest Beherit demos, classic Japanese noise a la Pain Jerk and Incapacitants, and the aura of eighth-generation dubs of Archgoat rehearsal tapes, all grown together into a swollen, pulsating, cancerous mass of cacophonous horror.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c!----\u003e","brand":"Crucial Blast Records","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49659350090020,"sku":"","price":9.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/2606\/0952\/files\/cgacass.jpg?v=1721926249"},{"product_id":"cremation-grounds-abortion-sacrament-3-cdr","title":"Cremation Grounds – Abortion Sacrament 3\" CDr","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/bandcamp.com\/EmbeddedPlayer\/album=248929563\/size=small\/bgcol=ffffff\/linkcol=0687f5\/transparent=true\/\" style=\"border: 0; width: 100%; height: 42px;\"\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCremation Grounds – Abortion Sacrament 3\" CDr\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Similar to the recent online-only (thus far) release of the long-thought-lost CREMATION GROUNDS full-length \"Lord Of Nerves\", the 20-minute EP \"Abortion Sacrament\" is another recording that was produced in the late 2000s and had been thought lost for fifteen years due to the destruction of the hard drive that contained the original masters.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAs part of a recent organizing effort here at Crucial Blast, almost all of these recordings were recently rescued from that cursed external drive, and have been resurrected for your listening displeasure.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe three-track \"Abortion Sacrament\" EP is the very first release that Cremation Grounds recorded around 2008-2009, and like other recordings of the era, dislodges a bog-damn of insanely misanthropic black noise, buried no-fi industrial noise-sludge, crushing harsh-noise-wall style constructions, and an overdriven recording style that may well have been itself the cause of that hard drive's suffering and collapse. Again, the gist of these tracks is pure in-the-red evil electronic obliteration, much of it crafted by the entities behind Cremation Grounds as a kind of \"meditation through abomination\" strategy, utilizing the recordings for deep meditative sessions typically accompanied by entheogens, psychedelics (both natural and otherwise), acts of self-debasement and self-abuse, scatalogical ritual, and the disintegration of the ego in the churning jet-black oceans of searing distortion and low-end rumbling rot that dominate the sessions.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Abortion Sacrament\" does not have quite as much of the molten scum-dirge that is found on the \"Lord Of Nerves\" full-length. But these three tracks make up for it in all-out sense-wrecking chaos and over-modulated electronic violence. Drums, vocals and percussion all exist within the roiling black-static detonations of the title track and \"Spread Wide Upon Her Cremation Grounds (Adorned In Bone Ornaments)\", but they have been destroyed completely by walls of crumbling, crackling electronic distortion, with the occasional muffled roar of guttural, monstrous vocalizations breaking through the carnage.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAs with the album, this material skews hard towards the harsh noise \/ black noise end of the sound spectrum, but likewise takes a great deal of inspiration from the diabolic filth of ancient, dissolving Finnish black \/ demos. This sonic abhorrence crawls before the cracked and damaged altars of Macronympha, the no-fi bestial hiss of the earliest Beherit demos, classic Japanese noise a la Pain Jerk and Incapacitants, and the aura of eighth-generation dubs of Archgoat rehearsal tapes, all grown together into a swollen, pulsating, cancerous mass of cacophonous horror.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c!----\u003e","brand":"Crucial Blast Records","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49659359527204,"sku":"","price":9.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/2606\/0952\/files\/cgcd.jpg?v=1721926475"},{"product_id":"sanguinary-emperor-evocations-of-ruin-2023-2024-cassette","title":"Sanguinary Emperor – Evocations Of Ruin 2023-2024 cassette","description":"\u003ciframe style=\"border: 0; width: 100%; height: 42px;\" src=\"https:\/\/bandcamp.com\/EmbeddedPlayer\/album=2694369433\/size=small\/bgcol=ffffff\/linkcol=0687f5\/transparent=true\/\" seamless\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eSanguinary Emperor – Evocations Of Ruin 2023-2024 cassette\u003c!----\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"From the beginning, Sanguinary Emperor has been the brainchild of prolific New Jersey-based blackened barbarian E.X., who's been hard at work befouling my speakers in recent years with other profane, warped projects like the no-fi black metal \/ noise-ambient of Black Blood of the Ahrimanic Chamber, the Sadean dungeon electronics of Marcabra, and Spectral Torture's atmospheric raw black metal. Most of this stuff is centered on his Summoners Chalice label, which has been a reliable go-to for me over the past year to hear some of the scuzziest, most scarifying USBM oozing out of the East Coast. But there was something special about a certain MMXXIII Demo from a new band called Sanguinary Emperor that just showed up in my Youtube feed via the excellent No Gleaming Light channel back in October '23. Rumbling out of my speakers like a tanker-spill of toxic industrial waste, that three-\"song\" demo instantly entranced me with its bizarre blend of Beherit-esque savagery, slow-motion mechanized plod (like something off a late-80s UK industrial metal album), incoherent but disquieting vocal sounds, and brain-damaged (or damaging) repetition. All that, and laced with these strangely imperious melodies that leaked across the glacial crush like threnodies for victims of a satanic mass-murder. Low-fi and filthy as hell, I've been obsessed with that one demo, learning that it was the work of just E.X., the same guy behind these other weird, abrasive Summoners Chalice-related bands. Leaning harder into the realm of the weirdness of stuff like Ride For Revenge, Barathrum, Legion Of Andromeda, and especially Looting The Tomb Of The Aramathean-era Black Mass of Absu, the MMXXIII Demo ended up being one of my favorite releases of the year.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAlmost as soon as that hideous demo surfaced online, E.X. joined up with bassist R.S. and drummer D.T. (the latter of which also contributing additional vocal vomit) to create a new vision of Sanguinary Emperor’s bulldozing malevolence. Building on the warped, wretched heaviness of that first demo, the band quickly began crafting a new batch of songs that are even heavier and more lung-collapsing than ever: the first of these emanations was a rehearsal recording in the autumn of 2023 captured during a session on their home turf of Bayonne, New Jersey, demonstrating the trio's violent ferocity at full power, and that was fast followed by their Demo 2024, the first proper studio session from Sanguinary Emperor. Both of these recordings were self-released by the band through their Bandcamp page, and subsequently crawled their way onto the 'Tube where I discovered 'em. But now for the first time, both of these full-band recordings are collected and electronically etched into physical media, drenching you in a total twenty-one minutes of diseased, debased, barbaric rumble.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFull force filth flows from the first side of this collection, drenching you in a black tide of rotting flesh, bilious fluids, and advanced-stage rabies. The three songs that make up Sanguinary Emperor's 2024 Demo are absolutely foul, really living up to the band's self-imposed designation of \"bestial doom\"; now with the lineup fleshed out into a full band, guitarist \/ vocalist E.X. spews out an even heavier and burlier brand of blackened death doom. The new rhythm section lay out a battering ram low-end assault in painful slow-motion - where the first demo was a churning mass of near indefinable chaos, now the band sinks into deep, dome-shattering grooves that propel the blasphemy like tank-treads moving through a black bog. This shit is heavy as fuck, a blur of blackened tremolo-picked distortion and hellish riffs, caveman drumming and layered, stomach-churning shrieks and grunts, all swallowed up in huge cavernous reverb. That horrendous heaviness will sometimes fall away, leaving just the hiss of the cymbal and rumble of latent amp-scum hanging like a release of grave fumes, but whenever the band caves back in, it's like getting your spine run over by a backhoe. It's freaking gnarly, and even when they kick up the tempo into a sick punk-like mid-tempo stomp like on \"Sanguinary Emperor \" and \"Entranced by the Inescapable Nothing\", it never loses any of that septic chaos. It's definitely a different vibe than the first demo, more structured and more riff-based, but it still sounds utterly ghastly.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe two rehearsal tracks on the b-side naturally offer a rawer and immediate version of Sanguinary Emperor's sound, but it's just as absurdly heavy. Sounds like it could have been recorded in a cave, too. From the solemn opening of \"Cascade...Into Everlasting Night\" that builds into a primitive, droning trance awash in churning waves of distortion, to the grinding and hypnotic death-dirge \"Ruination Fires Burn\", these earlier tracks are a bridge between the more messed-up, Abruptum-esque demonic chaos of the first demo and the crushing black doom of the 2024 demo songs. Just as heavy as the rest of it, but more pared down to simple, mesmeric riff structures that ooze over you like black fluids.\"\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Crucial Blast Records","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49689989546276,"sku":"","price":9.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/2606\/0952\/files\/sangui.jpg?v=1722525503"},{"product_id":"sanguinary-emperor-mmxxiii-demo-cassette","title":"Sanguinary Emperor – MMXXIII Demo cassette","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/bandcamp.com\/EmbeddedPlayer\/album=246858342\/size=small\/bgcol=ffffff\/linkcol=0687f5\/transparent=true\/\" style=\"border: 0; width: 100%; height: 42px;\"\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSanguinary Emperor – MMXXIII Demo cassette\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"The MMXXIII Demo that I discovered last year on the awesome No Gleaming Light Youtube channel was my first hit of Sanguinary Emperor, and man, it came on hard. At the time (October of '23), I stumbled across this horror-show out of the fuckin' blue, and had my spinal column warped by the psychotic, inhuman slow-motion filth that came creeping out of my speakers. Where the band's more recent material features a full trio hammering out Sanguinary Emperor's gross bestial black doom, the Demo MMXXIII is the very first recording from the project and is entirely created and recorded by founding member E.X.. Aside from the natural progression from a one-man outfit to a full power-trio, what really sets these three songs apart is the abject, crumbling atmosphere and structure, the songs having an almost formless heaviness that feels like being dunked into a sewage pit again and again while some kind of blasphemous black ritual is taking place around the outer rim. It ain't pretty.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt's substantially more fucked-up than the subsequent recordings. In the space of about twelve minutes, E.X. drags you by the feet into a sprawling, stinking abyss of slaytanic sludge that at times devolves into a kind of necrotic hell-drone. Song titles like \"Infernal Cavern\", \"Satanic Death House\", and \"Evocations\" are pretty evocative of the visions running through E.X.'s demented skull, but the music is even more wrecked and wretched than the \"bestial doom\" tag would lead you to expect. The songs are stumbling, slow-motion crawling things sweating diseased blood and exuding stinking sulfur, monstrous (and insanely deep) guttural roars echoing in the depths as the brain-damaged drumming plods along incessantly, barbaric two-chord riffs churning over and over while swarms of sickening double bass and tremolo-picked drone surges from below. The music is dense but primitive and simplistic - there's almost an early (and I mean fucking early) Swans-like quality to how E.X. just grinds out one basic, world-beating, beautifully dreary riff for what seems like days, a haze of gritty, grungy distortion and fuzz and hiss and low-fi slime hanging heavy over the whole shebang.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLike the later stuff, there's that unmistakable black doom vibe, which I'm pretty sure fans of stuff like Mordor, Barathrum, and even Beherit will groove on big-time. But there's this severely weird, quasi-industrial quality to these lumbering, lurching, low-fi hate assaults that make this much more messed-up and mutated, aligning it even more closely with the weirdo Satanic dirge-crush of Looting The Tomb Of The Aramathean-era Black Mass of Absu, Ride For Revenge, Flooded Church of Asmodeus, Gonkulator, hell, even some of the more \"propulsive\" Abruptum material. You get my drift. This debut demo is a special kind of decrepit heaviness, with immense doom-laden riffs and genuinely eerie guitar lines drifting through the pulverizing, churning, seething death-dirge. When it culminates with the closer \"Evocations\", man, it feels like standing in front of an ancient, antediluvian cathedral collapsing in extreme slow motion. Goddamn awesome.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c!----\u003e","brand":"Crucial Blast Records","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49689993281828,"sku":"","price":9.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/2606\/0952\/files\/sangmmxxiiidemo.jpg?v=1722525745"},{"product_id":"stclvr-post-self-abandonment-cassette","title":"STCLVR – Post Self Abandonment cassette","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/bandcamp.com\/EmbeddedPlayer\/album=1628146172\/size=small\/bgcol=ffffff\/linkcol=0687f5\/transparent=true\/\" style=\"border: 0; width: 100%; height: 42px;\"\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSTCLVR – Post Self Abandonment cassette\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Hailing from somewhere in Western NY, STCLVR (pronounced \"Streetcleaver\") blows the tail end of 2023 apart with this slammin' electronic body-horror bomb. Delivered via brutal Death EBM that unleashes a maelstrom of rabid electronic noise, brutal death metal-esque vocal terror, rumbling industrial loops, Carpenter-style synthesizers (just check out \"Scumbag Finesse\"), and blasts of crushing rhythmic power that invoke the hardest dancefloor eruptions of classic Belgian EBM. Equal parts harsh psychedelic noise, acid-damaged beast roars, lava-like distortion, and hardened beats that resemble Front 242, Nitzer Ebb, or Twitch-era Ministry filtered through a blackened cloud of rot and repulsion.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c!----\u003e","brand":"Crucial Blast Records","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49689997869348,"sku":"","price":9.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/2606\/0952\/files\/stclvr.jpg?v=1722525958"},{"product_id":"genevieve-akratic-parasitism-cassette","title":"Genevieve – Akratic Parasitism cassette","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/bandcamp.com\/EmbeddedPlayer\/album=2771386482\/size=small\/bgcol=ffffff\/linkcol=0687f5\/transparent=true\/\" style=\"border: 0; width: 100%; height: 42px;\"\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGenevieve – Akratic Parasitism cassette\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrenzied and violent black \/ death chaos stained by the unexpected presence of 90’s math rock (SLINT, RODAN) and the psychosis of early TODAY IS THE DAY.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c!----\u003e","brand":"Crucial Blast Records","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49723621933348,"sku":"","price":9.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/2606\/0952\/files\/genevieve.jpg?v=1723142575"},{"product_id":"sadomatic-rites-demo-2023-cassette","title":"Sadomatic Rites – Demo 2023 cassette","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/bandcamp.com\/EmbeddedPlayer\/album=3313890008\/size=small\/bgcol=ffffff\/linkcol=0687f5\/transparent=true\/\" style=\"border: 0; width: 100%; height: 42px;\"\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSadomatic Rites – Demo 2023 cassette\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI have no idea what is going on in South Korea that instigates this level of madness, but there's something happening there. Some of the craziest-sounding black \/ death metal I've heard lately appear to be emanating from that region of the world; it's as if the South Korean black metal scene is plagued with rabies. Take Sadomatic Rites. This brand new project crawled into my skull via the fantastic Rites of Pestilence Youtube channel, and I can't get it off me. I can’t get it off me. This is absolutely punishing black crud, low-fi and hand-made and totally horrendous, coming from the foul orbit of the Berserk Ritual Productions community of bands, all of which exists in a kind of bizarre, hyper-Satanic frenzy. That all-out Satanic madness fully infects the brain-damaged blackened gurgle of Rites, the totally incomprehensible vocals alluding to mindless acts of blasphemy and profanity, desecration and disturbed apocalyptic visions. This stuff is unapologetically obscene.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe original online demo (which initially was just two or three songs) slimed over me like a barely-sentient black oil spill, serving up a blast of stumbling necrotic doom with bizarre delay-drenched vocals, weird unidentifiable noises, and disturbing, ophidian hissing. Bass-heavy, and distorted to hell. The music violently lurches from side to side, from one sicko riff to the next, but sticking with a repetitive, hammering hypnotic attack where the anonymous monster behind this grinds out these filthy, fucked-up riffs ad nauseum That barbaric simplicity and anti-social gibbering combines with a kind of sludge-punk minimalism that stinks up the joint. Vocals echo over the satanic sludge through a thick haze of delay and other effects.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe band blatantly cites the likes of Beherit and Ride For Revenge as its main influence (the band name itself is taken from a Beherit song, natch), and boy, you can definitely hear it. But over here, my ears also pick up guttural whispers of the messy, crushing, doped-out trudge of stuff like Upsidedown Cross, Kilslug, and Drug Problem-era Drunks With Guns. It all sounds so mangled, murderous, and likely psychotic. A glorious mess of loathing and antipathy. When things pick up the pace, like on the bumbling quasi-blast of \"Piss Your God's Grave\" (sic) and the tumbling havoc of \"Crawling Slaves of Jesus Christ\" (zero subtlety here, folks), Rites turns even more chaotic and damaged, a caveman thrash beat banging away beneath chaotic shredding, atonal guitar \"solos\", and those incessant, repulsive chant-like vocals. The abrupt tempo changes from manic hammering to gluey psychedelic pummel give me a wicked case of whiplash. Then there's the parts where it sounds like droning synth drifts up out of the gutter, adding a creepy ambience to this stuff; it's those moments that evoke the ancient weirdness of Drawing Down The Moon-era Beherit, not something that many bands are capable of pulling off. It's bonkers.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c!----\u003e","brand":"Crucial Blast Records","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49723887092004,"sku":"","price":9.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/2606\/0952\/files\/sadomaticrites.jpg?v=1723147535"},{"product_id":"heretique-du-nord-shadow-and-frost-cassette","title":"Heretique Du Nord – Shadow And Frost cassette","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/bandcamp.com\/EmbeddedPlayer\/album=1994586359\/size=small\/bgcol=ffffff\/linkcol=0687f5\/transparent=true\/\" style=\"border: 0; width: 100%; height: 42px;\"\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHeretique Du Nord – Shadow And Frost cassette\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Emerging from the chill of the Quebec winter, a cloaked and hooded entity known only as Malgeist has been busy haunting online spaces for dungeon synth, dark ambient, and doom metal with a steady stream of new music that bridges all of these sounds. While Malgeist started to craft his sinister soundscapes back in the mid-2000s, he only recently showed up with his first official recordings, all of which were released digitally. The aptly titled Shadow and Frost is the first physical release from Malgeist's Hérétique du Nord, an hour-long sprawl of eccentric oubliette-doom that's rich in atmosphere and flecked with an unusual stylistic palette. A mixture of solemn dungeon synth and cinematic strings, erratic chunks of subterranean drone-doom and moody samples, are all assembled together in an odd sound-collage style that's heavily drenched in northern gloom and an aura of wintry mystique.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt's definitely an unusual approach to \"dungeon synth\", unbeholden to any of the tenets of that style of music. All of the hallmarks of that classic dungeon-music feel are there, but the music of Shadow and Frost expands past it, stumbling through a frost-covered fever-dream of dark, droning tones, chilling soundscapes, and amorphous heaviness. These sounds bleed, blur and merge together into a quixotic mixture of classic dungeon synth and medieval melody, raw Earth 2-esque drone-metal crush turned gothic, dark ambient, folk music, noise, and field recordings, sometimes melting into one another, at others appearing via jagged editing and sequencing that accentuates the album's hallucinatory allure. While these strange passages of haunting subterranean crypt-synth, funereal violins, billowing ambient doom-drone, and eerie choral chant wind and weave through these eleven tracks, Hérétique du Nord's further augments its sound with brief fragments of ancient and obscure horror-film dialogue, adding to the overall uncanny vibe that permeates this stuff.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrom the cold organ-like drones of opener \"La Traversée des Ailes Noires\", Malgeist clearly revels in the feel of the iconic faux-orchestral sounds of early \"Era 1\" Mortiis, Equitant \"The Circle of Agurak\", and (obviously) Burzum circa Hliðskjálf , but moves further afield into eerie cinematic string sections, luminous keyboard dirges, washes of lo-fi electronic buzz, then plummeting into mesmeric, monstrous doom riffs that hover over cloudscapes of shimmering chthonic drift and deep wells of Lustmordian ambience. Clanking metallic harpsichord and doomed electronics combine on tracks like \"Scarlet and Crimson\", while tribal rhythms surge over the beginning of \"Rituel des Quatre Périls\" before opening a muffled cacophony of wintry wind and distant chant-like sounds. There's a couple of organ motifs that keep popping up throughout the album, but each song keeps turning this into unexpected directions, like when the album delves into its awesome passages of cavernous, guttural, crumbling doom riffs in \"Ashes of the Final Bastion\" and \"Shattered Glaive of the Emerald Priestess\", or the gorgeous violins and staccato strings of the title track that evoke the spirit of Bernard Herrmann staggering through a total white-out winter storm. Like I said, this is pretty wild.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis stuff ends up feeling sort of like an inadvertent distant cousin to the creepier ends of Nurse With Wound's surrealist sound-fuckery, mingling with an ethereal haze of neoclassical dark wave a la In The Nursery and Arcana alongside elements lifted from the moody early horror film scores and crude, blackened doom metal dirge. Definitely works best as a single unbroken piece, which is why I wanted to put this out on audio cassette, where Hérétique du Nord's singular mixture can properly sit within the saturated sound of magnetized tape. Shadow is a weird trip, constantly maintaining a frigid, freezing atmosphere as it creeps and crawls through its strange chambers of Grand Guignol drama and menacing instrumentation.\" \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c!----\u003e","brand":"Crucial Blast Records","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49723902886180,"sku":"","price":9.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/2606\/0952\/files\/heretiquedunord.jpg?v=1723147870"}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/2606\/0952\/collections\/cb.jpg?v=1720111982","url":"https:\/\/www.stickfiguremailorder.com\/collections\/crucial-blast-records.oembed?page=2","provider":"Stickfigure Mailorder","version":"1.0","type":"link"}