CD

Spectral Wound play black metal. Furious and visceral, untrammeled by esoteric posture or grasping idealism.  It is music for the poisoned, the futile, the debauched and profane. The blooming of a flower of corruption, torn by cold winds.

Following the raw early offering of Terra Nullius (Arcane Angels/Out of Season 2015) Spectral Wound continued their path of creeping, opulent decay and searing melody, weaving strands of Métal noir Québécois with the weft of the Scandinavian canon. Refining its sound over Infernal Decadence (Vendetta, 2018) and the towering, exultant melancholy of A Diabolic Thirst (Profound Lore, 2021), with Songs Of Blood and Mire (Profound Lore 2024) the band delivers an elegy of the void, seething with the venom and clamour of an ever-emptying world.  

Track Listing: 1. Fevers and Suffering, 2. At Wine-Dark Midnight in Mouldering Halls, 3. Aristocratic Suicidal Black Metal, 4. The Horn Marauding, 5. Less and Less Human, O Savage Spirit, 6. A Coin Upon the Tongue, 7. Twelve Moons in Hell

Artist: SPECTRAL WOUND
Title: Songs of Blood and Mire (CD)
Label: Profound Lore Records
Catalog No.: PFL-319
Release Date: Aug 23, 2024
UPC CD: 843563177211

Like black wings from an obsidian sky, WORMWITCH descended from the darkness in 2015, somewhere upon the rain-soaked woodlands of coastal British Columbia. Animated from the bones of several local punk and metal bands, the new entity set out to combine a melodic blackened death assault with the ferocity and attitude of crust punk and classic rock and roll, jettisoning the burdens of ceremony and pomp that dominate the genre today.

WORMWITCH released their first demo, 'The Long Defeat' in 2015, and shortly after signed to Prosthetic Records, under whom they released 'Strike Mortal Soil' (2017), 'Heaven that Dwells Within' (2019), and 'Wolf Hex' (2021). During that time the band toured with the likes of The Black Dahlia Murder, Suffocation, Midnight, Necrot, Uada, Bewitcher, and many others, earning themselves a dedicated cult following and international critical praise. In 2022, WORMWITCH struck out to independently release a string of singles and embark upon several tours of North America. After a busy festival season, 2024 saw the release of a six-song split with Atlanta black-thrashers Sadistic Ritual.

Now, with blades meticulously honed and tempered under the light of a feral Canadian moon, WORMWITCH emerges once more to offer their fourth full length record. Simply self-titled, “Wormwitch” is a statement of a band coming into it’s own - a revelrous celebration of devilish speed, searing melody and diabolical intensity.

Track Listing: 1. Fugitive Serpent, 2. Envenomed, 3. The Helm And The Bow, 4. Inner War, 5. Godmaegen, 6. Salamander, 7. Wormsblood Necromancy, 8. Bright And Poisonous 9. Draconick Sorcerous Canadian Witchknights

Artist: WORMWITCH
Title: Wormwitch (CD/Digital)
Label: Profound Lore Records
Catalog No.: PFL-318
Release Date: July 26, 2024
UPC CD: 843563176672
Store Listing Price (CD): 11.00 (EUROS)
Track Listing: 1. Fugitive Serpent, 2. Envenomed, 3. The Helm And The Bow, 4. Inner War, 5. Godmaegen, 6. Salamander, 7. Wormsblood Necromancy, 8. Bright And Poisonous 9. Draconick Sorcerous Canadian Witchknights

June 14th will see the release of the new BALWEZO WESTIJIZ album “Tower Of Famine”.  Featuring prolific multi-instrumentalist Swartadauthuz and vocalist Likaska, BALWEZO WESTIJIZ began as a ritualistic dark ambient project but has now transmuted into a towering black metal force.  “Tower Of Famine” is comprised of nine tracks of somber, monumental, and melancholic black metal dread. 

Track Listing: 1. The Foul Carcass of God, 2. Flesh in the Funeral Pyre, 3. No Reason to Exist, 4. Calling From the Ashes, 5. (Vermin…) of Broken Memories, 6. Endless Black Nightmares, 7. …of the Rotting Soul, 8. Drown in Bleak Blood, 9. Tower of Famine… (The Past Returns)

Artist: BALWEZO WESTIJIZ
Title: Tower Of Famine (CD)
Label: Profound Lore Records
Catalog No.: PFL-317
Release Date: June 14, 2024
UPC CD: 843563174920

As the mighty Evil has come to man, so has ANTICHRIST SIEGE MACHINE summoning the darkness with their third LP “Vengeance Of Eternal Fire” set for release on April 19th.  Expanding upon the latent evil in their hearts and inspired by the prophecies of Old, ANTICHRIST SIEGE MACHINE cast their lot with the demons of Hell.  Each track on “Vengeance Of Eternal Fire” bearing the banner of violence and chaos, furthering the duo’s commitment to utter brutality.

ANTICHRIST SIEGE MACHINE have solidified support within the underground and after a highly successful touring cycle in support of their previous LP “Purifying Blade”, the band will focus on the live assaults in co-ordinance with “Vengeance Of Eternal Fire”.  Following many sold out shows in the US and Europe, including multiple runs in the US on their own with multiple fest appearances (MDF, Psycho Las Vegas, NWTF, Mass Destruction, Destroying Texas to name some), several dates as direct support to Emperor, and US tour runs with bands such bands as Demilich and Miasmatic Necrosis.  Also part of the “Purifying Blade” campaign the band have conquered Europe on a UK/IRE tour with Full Of Hell, and a full European tour with labelmates Spirit Possession.

“Vengeance Of Eternal Fire” was recorded and mixed by Matt Michel at Viva Studio with vocal recording by Bob Quirk and mastering by Arthur Rizk.  Album art by Burney.

Track Listing: 1. Son Of Man, 2. Only Evil, 3. Piled Swine, 4. Sisera, 5. Cowering Lamb, 6. Prey Upon Them, 7. Vanquishing Spirit , 8. Scalding Enmity, 9. Lysergic War Psychosis, 10. Abyssal Hate

CD Specs: Regular jewel case w/fold out 4-panel insert/booklet.

Artist: ANTICHRIST SIEGE MACHINE
Title: Vengeance Of Eternal Fire (CD)
Label: Profound Lore Records
Catalog No.: PFL-316
Release Date: Apr 19, 2024
UPC CD: 843563173121

Experimental metal trio LOCRIAN are a prophetic voice of decline and a pioneering force in the world of metal. LOCRIAN’s sonic tapestry weaves elements of black metal, ambient, and experimental music, creating a genre-defying experience that pushes the boundaries of conventional metal norms. Their new album “End Terrain” set for release on April 05, is the proper follow-up to 2015’s “Infinite Dissolution” (Relapse Records) and continues in the vein of LOCRIAN’s distinguishable sonic blueprint brought forth from said release along with such albums as the Relapse Records released “Return To Annihilation” and “The Clearing/The Final Epoch”.  2022 saw the return of LOCRIAN making their return on their Profound Lore debut “New Catastrophism” which saw the trio explore and return back to the more experimental side of their roots. 

“End Terrain” is the group’s most direct and concise work to date. More complex and layered than anything in the prolific trio’s catalog, “End Terrain” is a concept album exposing a vision of a future earth consumed by waste. An apocalyptic landscape, inhabited by a generation who despise their parentage and a dying breed fully aware of the wasteland they have left. Mountains of trash and an uninhabitable planet, endless and dead. End Terrain is about inertia and regret, about the future and a mirror to the present, about mourning and extinction.

A seamless and harrowing blend of experimental, post-rock, and post-metal, “End Terrain” is the perfect manifestation of modern, forward-thinking experimental music pushed to a maximalist conclusion.

The trio of LOCRIAN, comprised of André Foisy (Albany), Terence Hannum (Baltimore), and Steven Hess (Chicago), has garnered critical acclaim for their innovative approach to heavy music. As Marc Masters of Pitchfork noted, “Plenty of bands play music that sounds dark, but few can make every note bleed black and breathe smoke. Count Locrian as part of that select circle.” Lars Gotrich of NPR praised the group stating that “Locrian always wants to show us something new – or at least rearrange the context of what heavy means, or even what sound means,” and Jamie Ludwig of Noisey applauded the group for “masterfully conjuring and destroying alternate universes through music” with each of their releases providing “challenging sonic adventures and evocative perspectives on the physical state of the world around us.”

In the ever-evolving realm of extreme music, Locrian stands as a testament to the power of artistic exploration. Their geographical spread mirrors the expansive sonic landscapes they traverse, cementing their status as trailblazers in the avant-garde metal scene.

Track Listing: 1. Chronoscapes, 2. Utopias, 3. Umwelt, 4. The World Is Gone, There is no World, 5. Excarnate Light, 6. Black Prisms of Our Dead Age, 7. Innenwelt, 8. In the Throes of Petrifaction, 9. After Extinction

CD Specs: Six panel digipack w/spot gloss, fold out insert, download card for PDF edition of LOCRIAN member Terrence Hannum’s 36-page “End Terran Addendum” short story booklet.

Artist: LOCRIAN
Title: End Terrain (CD)
Label: Profound Lore Records
Catalog No.: PFL-315
Release Date: Apr 05, 2024
UPC CD: 843563173121

The new album from American doomed dark metal veterans GREY SKIES FALLEN “Molded By Broken Hands” will see its release on March 8th.  This release date will coincide with the 25th anniversary of the band’s debut album “The Fate of Angels”.

“Molded By Broken Hands” will see the long-running contingent deliver their most triumphant work yet and is an album that carries that feeling of the underappreciated and underrated dark metal scene that was culminating in the US during the late ‘90s), an era where GREY SKIES FALLEN grew from, while helping to signal a new resurgence of doomy-dark metal artistry currently building.

Through soaring, emotionally searing melodies, glorious epic harmonics, and with an overall conquering aura, “Molded By Broken Hands” will finally deliver the recognition GREY SKIES FALLEN are worthy of. 

“Modled By Broken Hands” was recorded and engineered with all keyboards provided by Colin Marston (Krallice, Gorguts) in the Thousand Caves and was mixed and mastered by legendary Swedish producer Dan Swano (Edge Of Sanity).  It also features artwork and design by Travis Smith (Opeth, Katatonia).

Track Listing: 1. A Twisted Place in Time, 2. Molded by Broken Hands, 3. No Place For Sorrow, 4. I Can Hear Your Voice, 5. Cracks in Time, 6. Save Us, 7. Knowing That You’re There, 8. Severing The Soul (CD/iTunes exclusive Bonus Track)

Artist: GREY SKIES FALLEN
Title: Molded by Broken Hands (CD)
Label: Profound Lore Records
Catalog No.: PFL-313
Release Date: Mar 08, 2024
UPC CD: 843563171660

THEOPHONOS (ex-Serpent Column) and Profound Lore Records present “Ashes in the Huron River” to be released on LP/CD/Digital Feb 09, 2024.  The new LP is named in honor of the local woods and riverlands that continue to inspire the studio project. This record is an account of a life spent in the rotten heartlands of neoliberal capitalism and a tribute to the vibrant underground music cultures that thrived before the second half of the last decade.

Expanding on the directness of “Nightmare Visions”, “Ashes” is grander in scope, and is internally regarded as a more focused analogue to 2019’s “Mirror in Darkness”. Hafsteinn Viðar Ársælsson’s dark and intricate illustrations once again accompany the music with striking depictions of abandoned landscapes, arranged to invoke a sense of catastrophe and unwilling transformation.

Primary musical influences include Death Grips’ “Jenny Death” (which the record homages in its gradient-like structure, its centerpiece “Still You Haunt Me” even acting as a reimagined “On GP”), the downtuned hyperaggressions of Morbid Angel’s “Gateways to Annihilation”, and the cinematic, raw intimacies of Pelican’s “The Fire in Our Throats Will Beckon the Thaw”.

Contributions include reamping and additional mixing by longtime collaborator Maya Chun (of screamo prodigies Heavenly Blue and countless solo projects) in the frigid spaces of Detroit’s Telescope Vision Studio.

Track Listing: 1. The Built World, 2. No Reprieve, 3. Curse Envy, 4. Willing Power, 5. Grid Of Sorrows, 6. An Elegy, 7. Ashes In The Huron River, 8. Empty Gardens, 9. Still You Haunt Me, 10. As Long As Forever

Artist: THEOPHONOS
Title: Ashes In The Huron River (CD)
Label: Profound Lore Records
Catalog No.: PFL-312
Release Date: Feb 09, 2024
UPC CD: 843563170946

“Ruiner” the new full-length LP from time-honored US black metal entity KRIEG will see its release on Oct 13.  “Ruiner” is the first full-length from the cult US black metal force since 2014’s “Transient” and is a despondent expression that captures the classic KRIEG complexion which has solidified KRIEG as a vanguard and pioneer of US black metal.

Even though “Ruiner” is the first KRIEG full-length album in nine years, KRIEG has continued to remain active leading up to its long-awaited release through various splits, collabs and EPs.  This all culminated in that moment for “Ruiner” to ultimately manifest itself.

“Ruiner” is unrepentant and remorseless black metal in the reflective manner KRIEG and mastermind N. Jameson have always been known for.  Most-notably that of the savage and unhinged aura present in the triarchy of classic KRIEG works, namely “Destruction Ritual” (2001), “The Black House” (2004), and “Blue Miasma” (2006) while maintaining that harsh, sorrowful and cold-blooded melancholic aura.

Track Listing: 1. Bulwark, 2. Fragments Of Nothing, 3. Red Rooms, 4. Solitarily, A Future Renounced, 5. Manifested Ritual Horror, 6. No Gardens Grow Here, 7. An Execution In The Kingdom Of Ideas, 8. The Lantern And The Key

Artist: KRIEG
Title: Ruiner
Label: Profound Lore Records
Catalog No.: PFL-308
Release Date: Oct 13, 2023
UPC CD: 843563167205

California post-punk outfit FEARING follow their 2020 debut LP “Shadow” with their sophomore LP “Destroyer” set for release on Sept 29th.  “Destroyer” sees the core trio fostering their sound by continuing to migrate towards the sonic realms that capture the fine equilibrium allying the somber, austere, the vigorous, and vibrant.  A striking singular vision of abyssal maritime desolation expressed by carving sonic territory that seamlessly blends elements of French coldwave, European post-punk, and first wave shoegaze. 

Ever since their debut EP “A Life Of None” (2017), followed by their widely celebrated “Black Sand” EP (2018), FEARING have been procuring a constant flow of commendable releases.  Through vigorous touring and live endeavors (having toured alongside the likes of Gatecreeper, She Wants Revenge, Soft Kill, 200 Stab Wounds, Choir Boy, Narrow Head, and Death Bells, along with playing notable festivals as Substance, Home Sick, and Out From The Shadows), ever since the release of “Shadow”, FEARING have fastened themselves as one of the apex artists in today’s post-punk current.

Track Listing: 1. I Was So Alive, 2. Scars, 3. Destroyer, 4. Let It Grow, 5. The Sun Sets On Me, 6. Finding Where You Are, 7. The Flame, 8. Pulling Me Down, 9. You See Me

Artist: FEARING
Title: Destroyer
Label: Profound Lore Records
Catalog No.: PFL-307
Release Date: Sept 29, 2023
UPC CD: 843563166680

MIZMOR, is a one-man heavy music exploration that began in 2012 as a way of dealing with the mental and spiritual anguish mastermind A.L.N. feels as a person. More specifically, the content behind the project is that of the existential - primal and innate musings about cause, purpose, self, and god. It is the search for light and truth, or the fact that there is none. It comes from an embittered, burned, confused, and broken heart. It is the fight for survival when reason and foundation has turned to nothingness. It is the crashing down of towers of falsehood and the freedom that comes through a certain kind of grief. Ultimately, MIZMOR is the manifestation of my long-felt depression, and neither have an end in sight.

In A.L.N.’s own words behind the new MIZMOR album “Prosaic”:

“The idea behind “Prosaic” was to make an intentionally less conceptual, more slice-of-life record. I wanted to make an album that was less precious and obsessed-over, more honest and real; less grandiose and more human. I found it an interesting challenge to find the line between ‘you can do better’ and ‘you’re beating a dead horse.’ I tried to make my process more efficient and even fun at times. I simply wanted to share, but if that meant exacting all-out perfectionism, I wasn’t going to make a record. Right now I’m interested in making less self-indulgent music. The themes are the absurdity/futility/purpose/meaning of work, mindfulness/consciousness/living in the present moment/shedding illusions, depression/acceptance/contentment. This is the first MIZMOR album without any content relating to god/atheism. You also won’t hear any shrieks.”

Track Listing: 1. Only An Expanse, 2. No Place To Arrive, 3. Anything But, 4. Acceptance

Artist: MIZMOR
Title: Prosaic
Label: Profound Lore Records
Catalog No.: PFL-302
Release Date: July 21, 2023

Australian death metal monstrosity IMPETUOUS RITUAL will unleash their new album “Iniquitous Barbarik Synthesis” on May 12th.  “Iniquitous Barbarik Synthesis” is the follow-up to 2017’s “Blight Upon Martyred Sentience” and presents itself as the most unnatural, abnormal, and nightmarish IMPETUOUS RITUAL offering yet.

Nine tracks of uncanny metaphysical ambient death metal terror.

Track Listing:
1. Sanguinary Abstraction
2. Lecherous Molestation
3. Rite Of Impalement
4. Necromantic Esurience
5. Grail Of Enmity
6. Intramural Axion
7. Psychic Necrosis
8. Sacrilegious Penance
9. Metempsychosis

Artist: IMPETUOUS RITUAL
Title: Iniquitous Barbarik Synthesis
Label: Profound Lore Records
Catalog No.: PFL-301
Release Date: May 12, 2023
UPC CD: 843563157374
 

Pacific Northwestern doom metal monolith BELL WITCH will see the release of their new album “Future’s Shadow Part 1: The Clandestine Gate” on April 21st digitally followed by its physical release on 2LP/2CD/Cassette, June 9.  Pre-orders, along with a short-making of video of the album are now live (link in bio).  As well, the band have announced a surprise appearance at this year’s Roadburn Festival on April 20th where they will perform “The Clandestine Gate” in its entirety.

For their new album, bassist/vocalist Dylan Desmond and drummer/vocalist Jesse Shreibman exploded Bell Witch's bounds. Like 2017's lauded “Mirror Reaper”, “The Clandestine Gate” is a single 83-minute track -- a composition that pulses and breathes on a filmic timeframe. It constitutes the first chapter in a planned triptych of longform albums, collectively called “Future's Shadow.”

While traces of organ and synthesizer hovered over “Mirror Reaper” and Bell Witch's 2020 collaboration with Aerial Ruin, “Stygian Bough Volume 1”, “The Clandestine Gate” drew those instruments closer to the center of its compositions.  The band reunited with their longtime producer Billy Anderson as they began negotiating these new compositional weights.  On “The Clandestine Gate”, Bell Witch's twinned voices build off of the chantlike textures of previous records while steering toward more developed melodic lines, structured harmonies, and rhythmic death metal growls.

The immense gravity of a work like “The Clandestine Gate”, which features exclusive stunning cover art by Jordi Diaz Alama, allows ideas to simmer in a way that feels profoundly and somatically intuitive -- not just a philosophical exercise, but an embodied truth. By slowing down both their creative process and the tempo of the music itself, Bell Witch digs even deeper into their long standing focus: the way life spills on inside its minuscule container, both eternal and fleeting, a chord that echoes without resolution.

Track Listing: 1. The Clandestine Gate

Artist: BELL WITCH
Title: Future’s Shadow Part 1: The Clandestine Gate (2xLP)
Label: Profound Lore Records
Catalog No.: PFL-299LP
Release Date: June 09, 2023

Vinyl Specs:
Double LP jacket with download card.

Vinyl Editions:
*Aquatic Blue w/Purple, Red, Dark Green Splatter (EU Store Exclusive)
*Dark Blue, Red Colour Mix (EU Store Exclusive)
*Black Vinyl

Formed in Tokyo, Japan in the summer of 2017, KRUELTY has emerged as the most notable artist to find that sweet spot where the amalgamation of heavy beatdown hardcore and ‘90s American/Scandinavian death/doom metal becomes the blueprint of brutality and slam KRUELTY unleash.  With KRUELTY you will hear the ultimate convergence of some of the most punishing death metal riffs and the most mind-blowing breakdowns influenced by Japanese and ‘90s East Coast hardcore bands.

2020 saw the release of KRUELTY’s debut album “A Dying Truth” and revealed itself as one of the heaviest albums that year.  With their new LP “Untopia”, KRUELTY will release an album even bigger in scope and ultimately heavier than their debut.

Expect KRUELTY to crush stages live in your city in 2023 with tours planned in North America, Europe, Australia, Asia etc.

Track Listing:
1. Unknown Nightmare
2. Harder Than Before
3. Burn The System
4. Reincarnation
5. Maze Of Suffering
6. Manufactured Insanity
7. Untopia

Artist: KRUELTY
Title: Untopia
Label: Profound Lore Records
Catalog No.: PFL-294
Release Date: March 17, 2023
UPC CD: 843563157558

LYKOTONON is a digitized descent into the darker side of the human psyche. It is the probing question that hangs over all of humanity in the quietest of moments.  Avant-garde, industrial/electronic black metal featuring members of Wayfarer, Stormkeep, and Blood Incantation.

Track Listing:
1. The Apocryphal Self
2. Wrested From Solace
3. Apeiron
4. Psychosocratic
5. The Primal Principle
6. That Which Stares In Kind
7. Seeing Silver In Shadow

Artist: LYKOTONON
Title: Promethean Pathology
Label: Profound Lore Records
Catalog No.: PFL-289
Release Date: Nov 25, 2022
UPC CD: 843563156650

LYKOTONON is a digitized descent into the darker side of the human psyche. It is the probing question that hangs over all of humanity in the quietest of moments.  Avant-garde, industrial/electronic black metal featuring members of Wayfarer, Stormkeep, and Blood Incantation.

Track Listing:
1. The Apocryphal Self
2. Wrested From Solace
3. Apeiron
4. Psychosocratic
5. The Primal Principle
6. That Which Stares In Kind
7. Seeing Silver In Shadow

Artist: LYKOTONON
Title: Promethean Pathology
Label: Profound Lore Records
Catalog No.: PFL-289
Release Date: Nov 25, 2022
UPC CD: 843563156650

Blacklist is an atmospheric modern rock band whose music has been described as "anthemic" (The Guardian), "darkly erotic, strangely sensual" (The Village Voice) and "a much-needed anomaly in NYC's music scene" (Other Music NYC). Starting out as the flagship band of artist Pieter Schoolwerth's Wierd Records imprint, their trademark sound is dense and dark, incorporating elements of shoegaze and heavy metal with coldwave. The members often cite influences like My Bloody Valentine and Motörhead alongside bands like Comsat Angels, Killing Joke, and The Sound, while singer Joshua Strachan's (Vaura) lyrics split the difference between the anthemic manifestos of Manic Street Preachers and Sisters of Mercy's "Vision Thing."

Blacklist's debut LP, Midnight of the Century - produced by Ed Buller (Suede, Pulp) - was released in 2009. The album's main focus was a rejection of what Strachan described as a fear of looming new forms of fascism aided by the rise of various political and religious dogmas. After a long hiatus, the band returned in summer of 2020 with the "Disorder" single, inspired by the racial justice protests in the United States, and the B-Side "No Secret Islands" which takes aim at the dystopian fantasies of tech billionaires. 

In April of 2022 "The Final Resistance" was announced as the lead single from an upcoming LP, "Afterworld," due to be released in late autumn via Profound Lore Records. Post-punk.com called it a "captivating and dense explosion of coldwave and unfettered emotion," and Brooklyn Vegan said it "picks up where the band left off with widescreen scope and a call-to-arms chorus." The album, produced by Strachan and mixed by Sanford Parker (Darkthrone, Yob, BLOODYMINDED) explores the possible meanings of love in a time of political and environmental collapse.

Track Listing:
1. Fires Of Black November
2. The Final Resistance
3. Nightbound
4. No Good Answers
5. Behind The Veil Of The Living World
6. Pathfinder
7. Scarlet Horizon
8. A Stranger In This Century
9. In Shadow Light
10. Lovers In Mourning

Artist: BLACKLIST
Title: Afterworld
Label: Profound Lore Records
Catalog No.: PFL-287
Release Date: Oct 28, 2022
UPC CD: 843563152041

Reeking Aura is a NY/NJ based death/doom metal band in the old school tradition comprised of known scene veterans from Long Island and NYC. Originally conceived as a project for guitarists Ryan Lipynsky (Unearthly Trance, The Howling Wind) and Rick Habeeb (Grey Skies Fallen, Buckshot Facelift) to share lead duties, additional guitarist Terrell Grannum (Thaetas, Buckshot Facelift), was brought into the fold along with fellow Buckshot Facelift alumni Tom Anderer (Grey Skies Fallen) on bass and William “Big Will” Smith (Afterbirth, Ex-Artificial Brain) on vocals in late 2019.

Since releasing their debut 3 song EP “Beneath the Canopy of Compost” on Parasitic records in 2020, the band has parted ways amicably with drummer and friend Keith Harris (Afterbirth) and welcomed Sam Shereck (Blame God, Stabbed) behind the kit. Though unable to perform live during the pandemic, the group used 2020 and 2021 to write and record their debut full length album “Blood and Bonemeal”. They again chose to work with well-respected producer Colin Marston at his Menegroth the Thousand Caves studio in Queens, NY. Colin handled all stages of production from tracking to mixing and mastering with drums being recorded at Rock N Roll Gas Station studios on Long Island, NY.

“Blood and Bonemeal” is a concept album centered around the caretaker of a desolate agricultural property and that persons struggles with morbid psychosis. Musically, the band sought to further explore the possibilities of a 3-pronged lead guitar team, while the revamped rhythm section held down the bombastic wall of sound.

Track Listing:
1. Remnant of Obstinate Rank (Flooding Ratholes)
2. Blood And Bonemeal
3. Seed The Size Of A Spider’s Eye
4. Harvesting The Hatchet
5. A Vegetative Mush that Melts Among the Shelves Lined with Meats of Indeterminate Origin
6. Pyramid Shaped Plow/The Caretaker
7. Grublust

Artist: REEKING AURA
Title: Blood And Bonemeal
Label: Profound Lore Records
Catalog No.: PFL-286
Release Date: July 29, 2022
UPC CD: 843563150207

The new album from cult death/doom metal outfit INNUMERABLE FORMS “Philosophical Collapse”, the follow up to 2018’s “Punishment In Flesh” is a pillar of death/doom enormity unparalleled. 

Helmed by founder Justin DeTore (aka DFJ), “Philosophical Collapse” (which was produced by Arthur Rizk) emerges as INNUMERABLE FORMS’ most triumphant work as alongside DFJ (Dream Unending, Sumerlands), guitarists Chris Ulsh (Mammoth Grinder/Power Trip/Devil Master) and Jensen Ward (Iron Lung), drummer Connor Donnegan (Genocide Pact), and bassist Doug Cho deliver an opus that coalesces the old school Finnish death metal cult of the early ‘90s and the early ‘90s UK doom glory of Anathema/Paradise Lost.

Track Listing:

1. Philosophical Collapse
2. Built On Wrought
3. Incremental
4. Lifeless Harvest
5. Bleeding Time
6. Deified Tyrants
7. Thrall
8. Despotic Rule
9. Sleeping In Light

Artist: INNUMERABLE FORMS
Title: Philosophical Collapse
Label: Profound Lore Records
Catalog No.: PFL-285
Release Date: Sept 16, 2022
UPC CD: 843563155363

Profound Lore Records is proud to announce the May 6th release of Italian one-man death metal force COSMIC PUTREFACTION’s third album “Crepuscular Dirge For The Blessed Ones”.

On “Crepuscular Dirge For The Blessed Ones”, sole mastermind Gabriele Garmaglia continues the COSMIC PUTREFACTION narrative begun on the previous album “The Horizons Towards Which Splendour Withers”, where the only survivor from an apocalyptic annihilation of a dying planet walks towards its withered horizons.  On “Crepuscular Dirge…” this character ultimately finds an even more sorrowful truth at the end of his journey; one that shows the empyrean fall of man through the metaphysical world and the gods whom inhabit it.

Through “Crepuscular Dirge For The Blessed Ones”, Gramaglia establishes even more his own vision of death metal, this time enriching his multifaceted sound with widened atmospheres and a patina of omnipresent melancholy suggested by distant arpeggios, e-bow guitars and sometimes even synths organically blended with the relentless, ferocious riffs always present in this new effort.  To cap off this layered effort, Gramaglia this time relied on drummer Giulio Galati (Nero di Marte, Hideous Divinity) to deliver an extremely powerful and dynamic performance behind the kit.

COSMIC PUTREFACTION was formed in 2018 as the death metal sonic incarnation of the multi-instrumentalist Gabriele Gramaglia (also behind The Clearing Path and part of Turris Eburnea and Vertebra Atlantis), which summoned the aforementioned musical entity to re-arrange and complete the unreleased album of his first band Oaken/Throne, which begun in 2012 but was left uncompleted because the combo disbanded.  This album was completed and released in 2019 under the name of “At the Threshold of the Greatest Chasm”, which comprehended six-and-a-half tracks taken from the unreleased Oaken/Throne album.  He later refined his formula through the second album “The Horizons Towards Which Splendour Withers” which expanded the death metal roots with the multifaceted range of influences Gramaglia has developed throughout the years.

Track Listing:
1. …Through Withered Horizons
2. Sol’s Upheaval Debris
3. From Resounding Silence To The Obsidian Womb
4. Amniotic Bewilderment
5. Lysergic Sulfuric Waters
6. Twisting Spirals In The Murk
7. Cradle Wrecked, Curtains Unfurled
8. Crepuscular Dirge For The Blessed Ones

Artist: COSMIC PUTREFACTION
Title: Crepuscular Dirge For The Blessed Ones
Label: Profound Lore Records
Catalog No.: PFL-283
Release Date: May 06, 2022
UPC CD: 843563150313

“Discarnate Ails” the new album from Texas-based progressive deat/black metal band HAUNTER is the follow up to 2019’s acclaimed “Sacramental Death Qualia” (named as Stereogum’s 2019 metal album of the year) which will unveil HAUNTER as one of the most enlightening and dynamic bands and one of its pioneering prospects within the current movement.

With “Discarnate Ails” HAUNTER have tapped into the next level unparalleled with their most complex, advanced, and their most furious and heaviest release to date.  The three epic chapters that comprise “Discarnate Ails” weave through intricate, dissonant and vitriolic passages that find the notable balance of challenging melodious movements and parts while maintaining the band’s sense of creating epochal songs of triumph and mastery.

Track Listing:
1. Overgrown With The Moss
2. Spiritual Illness
3. Chained At The Helm Of The Eschaton

Artist: HAUNTER
Title: Discarnate Ails
Label: Profound Lore Records
Catalog No.: PFL-282
Release Date: May 06, 2022
UPC CD: 843563150115

For their fifth full length “The Endless”, Denver, CO genre-defying progressive metal outfit DREADNOUGHT present their most spellbinding musical feature yet. With riveting vocal performances, ferocious grooves, and soaring synthesis, the quartet offers a familiarity to the melodic awe of previous records "Lifewoven" (2013) and "Bridging Realms"(2015) as well as the dark complexities within "A Wake In Sacred Waves" (2017) and "Emergence"(2019), but with a beautifully fresh perspective in writing, production, and performance.

At its inception in 2012, Dreadnought’s four members, including guitarist/vocalist Kelly Schilling, drummer Jordan Clancy, bassist Kevin Handlon, and keyboardist/vocalist Lauren Vieira, strove for a project laser-focused on creativity and exploration, pulling from all aspects of their musical backgrounds to craft something exciting and unique. Joining in the common ground of extreme metal, the quartet explores a blend of prog, doom, folk, jazz, classical, black metal, and post rock.

Track Listing:
1. Worlds Break
2. Midnight Moon
3. The Endless
4. Liminal Veil
5. Gears Of Violent Endurance
6. The Paradigm Mirror

Artist: DREADNOUGHT
Title: The Endless
Label: Profound Lore Records
Catalog No.: PFL-281
Release Date: Aug 26, 2022
UPC CD: 843563150849

Field of Appearances is the full-length debut from Los Angeles-based band OBJECT OF AFFECTION, which contains members of renowned acts Fury, Death Bells, and LOCK. Meticulously crafted with Grammy-nominated producer Alex Newport and emerging engineer Phillip Odom, Field of Appearances is an exceedingly memorable, precisely cohesive, and importantly, a refreshing addition to the alternative music landscape.

With the inclusion of drum machines, synthesizers, acoustic guitars, and auxiliary percussion, Field of Appearances highlights the band's sophisticated evolution and experimentation from previous single Through and Through (Suicide Squeeze) and their self-titled tape. The result: ten songs exploding in character, contrast, and excitement.
 
Exploring themes of reflection, insufficiency, and Déjà vu as well as additional contributions from Bre Morell (Temple of Angels, Crushed) and Brittney Beppu, each track on Field of Appearances simultaneously plays a role in making it a more significant sum than its parts while also standing out individually.
OBJECT OF AFFECTION taps into the primitivism of said members’ other projects while elevating their capacity for atmosphere and melody. Hints of gloomy post-punk, forlorn new wave, and down-and-out Regan-era alternative rock reverberate in their sound, not as pastiche but in sonic kinship to the austerity and fatalism embedded in the previous generation’s desperate and dejected anthems.
Already sharing the stage with accomplished bands including Ceremony, Fiddlehead, Gulch, These Arms Are Snakes, and Special Interest, the band is a welcome addition to the Profound Lore family. Make sure to catch Object of Affection around North America following Field of Appearances’ March 03 release.

Track Listing:
1. Half Life
2. Run Back
3. Time
4. Laying Claim
5. Buried
6. Someone
7. Is This Fate
8. Con-Man
9. Empty Eyes
10. Why Now

Artist: OBJECT OF AFFECTION
Title: Field Of Appearances
Label: Profound Lore Records
Catalog No.: PFL-280
Release Date: Mar 03, 2023
UPC CD: 843563159194

INCANDESCENCE an epic black metal duo from Quebec, Canada comprised of multi-instrumentalist Philippe Boucher (Beyond Creation, Chthe’ilist) and vocalist Louis-Paul Gauvreau have completed their fourth full-length LP “Le Coeur de L’Homme” set for release on CD/Digital April 15th with vinyl to come later. 

Ever since this project’s inception in 2011, INCANDESCENCE has been a vessel for Boucher, known mostly as a formidable top-tier drummer within the death metal scene due to his involvement in Beyond Creation and Chthe’ilist, to explore and expand his musical horizons in the realm of black metal (which he has also done with his other black metal project Décombres) where with INCANDESCENCE he handles all the instruments and songwriting with his counterpart Gauvreau handling all the vocals, lyrics and concepts. 

“Le Coeur de L’Homme” follows 2019’s “Ascension”, and a string of previous notable releases, and reveals itself as a glorious towering black metal release that will stand as a watershed moment for the Quebec black metal scene and finally make aware of INCANDESCENCE as one of Canada’s more significant present day black metal outfits.  “Le Coeur…” is an expression highlighting the creativity that continues to dwell within the heart of Quebec black metal, a towering and grandiose work of furious epochal ascending black metal where virulent and hostile gesticulations stabilize themselves with that of the classic black metal traits of the melancholic, despondent, and sorrowful.

Track Listing:

1. Avilissement
2. Tréfonds Macabres
3. La Descente
4. Avide De Cris
5. Écroulement Vers L’abîme
6. Le Coeur de L’Homme
7. La Spirale de L’échec
8. Désacralisation Des Moeurs

Artist: INCANDESCENCE
Title: Le Coeur De L’Homme
Label: Profound Lore Records
Catalog No.: PFL-278
Release Date: April 15, 2022
UPC CD: 843563150283

The new LOCRIAN album “New Catastrophism”, the first LOCRIAN release in seven years, will see its release on 2xCD/LP/Digital on Aug 12.  Alongside “New Catastrophism” LOCRIAN will also be releasing the “Ghost Frontiers” EP that will come as a bonus digital download with the LP.

“New Catastrophism” sees the iconic experimental music trio return back to their roots through four immersive tracks that signal towards the band’s signature expressions through dark ambient, experimental music, drone and post rock.  Massive dystopian sonic soundscapes through the many layers of sound is the dominant audial canvas presented on “New Catastrophism”. 

LOCRIAN is a prophetic voice of decline. From the band’s inception, it has comfortably straddled both the experimental and metal underground, weaving themes of apocalypse, urban decay, environmental destruction and birth/death/rebirth throughout its multifaceted and genre-defying releases. The trio formed in 2005 in Chicago and features Terence Hannum (synthesizers, vocals, tape loops), André Foisy (guitars, electronics), and Steven Hess (drums, electronics). Over their sixteen-year history, Locrian have released six studio albums, three collaborative albums, and numerous limited-edition releases.

Track Listing:
1. Mortichnia
2. The Glare Is Everywhere And Nowhere Our Shadow
3. Incomplete Map Of Voids
4. Cenotaph To The Final Glacier

“New Catastrophism” Vinyl Specs:
- Single LP jacket with spot gloss, a designed fold out poster/insert, a download card of said LP, and a bonus download card of the “Ghost Frontiers” EP.

“New Catastrophism” Vinyl editions:
-Aquatic Blue w/Silver Marble Smoke
-Clear Vinyl w/Light Blue, Silver, Black, White Splatter
-Aquatic Blue w/Silver + Black Double Orb
-Black Vinyl

Artist: LOCRIAN
Title: New Catastrophism 
Label: Profound Lore Records
Catalog No.: PFL-277LP
Release Date: Aug 12, 2022

Enigmatic Canadian prog-death metal unit BLACK DEATH CULT have completed work on their new album. Entitled "Diaspora," BLACK DEATH CULT traverse even further into the hidden crevices of the Archaeaeon through six bizarre audial abnormalities of death metal strangeness and perplexity.  The strangest death metal album of 2022 has arrived. 

Track Listing:
1. Neon Cross
2. Knights Of The Headless Order
3. Bloodworms
4. River Of Death
5. Inverse Moon
6. The Fractal Conspiracy

Artist: BLACK DEATH CULT
Title: Diaspora
Label: Profound Lore Records
Catalog No.: PFL-276
Release Date: April 1, 2022
UPC CD: 843563149713

HISSING is an extreme metal group based out of Seattle, WA. Founded in 2014 out of a mutual interest in mutilating sounds and exploring the outer limits of black and death metal, the group aims to desecrate expectations with each subsequent release.  Their new album “Hypervirulence Architecture”, which is their first album in four years following their “Permanent Destitution” debut LP, sees the trio take their sound into more nightmarish, trance inducing, mercurial and mind altering sonic dominions.

Track Listing:
1. Cells of Nonbeing
2. Hostile Absurdity
3. Operant Extinction
4. Hypervirulence
5. Intrusion
6. Identical to Hunger
7. Meltdown

Artist: HISSING
Title: Hypervirulence Architecture
Label: Profound Lore Records
Catalog No.: PFL-275
Release Date: July 15, 2022
UPC CD: 843563148310

'Winterlong', the psychedelic new album from EXECUTIONER’S MASK is set for release on CD/LP/Digital from Profound Lore Records on June 17th, 2022. An epic bouquet of swelling synths, hypnotic melodies, and noisy guitars marry post-punk and shoegaze in ten songs exploring themes of liberation and self-destruction in these end-times. In the studio, the core group of Gambit, Mickle and Wilson added Christian Molenaar into the fold on synths; adding an ethereal edge to the band's hard-driving melancholy. Additional touches were added by Kennedy Ashlyn (SRSQ) and Jake Superchi (Uada, Ceremonial Castings), each adding their distinct sonic fingerprints that send their compositions further into territories unexplored.

Featuring production from Jeff Zeigler (The War On Drugs) and Ryan Schwabe (Oneohtrix Point Never), 'Winterlong' is the type of sublime and immersive album that inspires the same visions often conjured by masters like The National, Alcest and Deerhunter.  On stage, Gambit, Mickle, and Molenaar are joined by Anthony Charletta on bass, Melissa Lochambon on drums, and Daniel Gaona on guitar to create an explosive force of sound that come together with the potency of 'Children of God' era Swans.

Track Listing:
1. Things Fall Apart
2. Two Vultures Fucking
3. Hart Island
4. Sick In Heaven
5. Contempt
6. Last Call
7. Your Ghost
8. Honey
9. Flaming Creatures
10. Wasting Away

Artist: EXECUTIONER’S MASK
Title: Winterlong
Label: Profound Lore Records
Catalog No.: PFL-274
Release Date: June 17, 2022
 

With their second full-length album “Infrared Horizon”, NY-based death metal band ARTIFICIAL BRAIN have created a sophomore release more advanced than their lauded debut album “Labyrinth Constellation”.  By taking their brand of singular brutal guttural yet technical and ambient sci-fi death metal to a new galaxial plateau, “Infrared Horizon” sees the sonic architecture laid down by the band go further into the beyond and infinite.

Conceived in 2011 by guitarist Dan Gargiulo (Revocation) and vocalist Will Smith (ex-Biolich), the band would be rounded out by bass player Samuel Smith (Luminous Vault), guitarist Jon Locastro, and drummer Keith Abrami.  The band would align themselves with Profound Lore Records and drop their debut album “Labyrinth Constellation” in 2014 to wide praise within the circles of death metal that range from accolades from within technical, dark, guttural, and progressive death metal respectively.  Along with decent touring around “Labyrinth Constellation”, the band would also have their music played and were even name dropped on multiple occasions in the popular CBS television shows Elementary and Limitless.

Once again produced by Colin Marson (Gorguts, Dysrhythmia, Krallice) at The Thousand Caves, “Infrared Horizon” (featuring art by Adam Burke) sees ARTIFICIAL BRAIN traveling towards a sonic realm where the music has become more brutal and dissonant, technical, atmospheric, and just overall more otherworldly.  Delving into the lyrics and themes of “Infrared Horizon”, themes such as dealing with the concept of a dystopian future in which robots and cyborgs have outlived human beings.  Robots and Cyborgs who believe themselves to be not of creation of the long extinct humans but a more perfect evolution of them.  The scenarios take place all over outer space and on unnamed planets (not necessarily Earth). 

Tracklist:

1. Floating in Delirium
2. Synthesized Instinct
3. Static Shattering
4. Estranged from Orbit
5. Infrared Horizon
6. Anchored to the Inlayed Arc
7. Mist like Mercury
8. Vacant Explorer
9. Graveyard of Lightless Planets
10. Ash Eclipse" 

Label: Profound Lore Records
Media type: CD 4-Panel Digipack
Release date: April 21, 2017
Genre: Death Metal

BOG BODY’s looming form has thawed from the dregs of sordid earth to reveal their debut full length album “Cryonic Crevasse Cult” on May 20th, 2022 on CD/LP/Digital via Profound Lore Records.

Following in the footsteps of their 2018 demo “Through the Burial Bog” and 2020’s MLP “The Gate of Grief,” BOG BODY traversing beyond the seracs and into the crevasses of black death, have transcended the cultic guts of black metal’s early forefathers with a subsonic war doom incursion for their debut album that’s as much a dirge as it is pandemonic fervor.

Recorded at Strange Weather Studios in New York by Ben Greenberg (Uniform, Algiers), mixed by Evan Mersky (Triumvir Foul, Witch Vomit), mastered by Dan Lowndes (Cruciamentum), and featuring artwork by Chase Slaker (Mortiferum).

Track Listing:
1. Paralytic Pit Of Swallowed Graves
2. Dregs Soar To The Skies
3. The Temple Of The Inevitable Flame
4. Ice Stained Kurgan
5. Cryonic Crevasse Cult
6. Mystery Of The Yaghan Bones
7. Frigid Shivs Slit Their Throats
8. The Graveyard Of Dead Cratons

Artist: BOG BODY
Title: Cryonic Crevasse Cult
Label: Profound Lore Records
Catalog No.: PFL-272
Release Date: May 20, 2022
UPC CD: 843563147443

NY-based industrial/electronic black metal duo LUMINOUS VAULT, consisting of Mario Diaz De Leon (vocals/guitars/synthesizers/programming) and Samuel Smith (bass/vocals), have completed work on their debut full-length LP “Animate The Emptiness” which follows the unit’s two previous EP “Charismata” (2017).

With “Animate The Emptiness”, LUMINOUS VAULT sees musical culmination of the two members’ creative repertoire in a new expression.  With De Leon’s experience and work within the realm of classical music and his Oneirogen project along with Smith’s work in Artificial Brain and Aeviterne, “Animate The Emptiness” presents itself as a vessel for the two musicians to explore new territory further within the realm of dark music by way of black metal and industrial music while treading adjacently within the familiarity of the other projects they dwell within.

Through a surgically cold sonic canvas consisting of piercing blood freezing riffs, hypnotic pulsating beats, and atmospherically charged electronics, “Animate The Emptiness” is an expression that tethers that of the harsh, desolate, rhythmically lurking, the melancholic, and ultimately that of the epic, celestial and soaring.

Track Listing:
1. Invoke Radiant Gleam
2. Incarnate Flame Arise
3. Divine Transduction
4. Regeneration
5. Earth Daemon
6. Embryonic
7. Ancient North

Artist: LUMINOUS VAULT
Title: Animate The Emptiness
Label: Profound Lore Records
Catalog No.: PFL-270
Release Date: May 20, 2022

BUNUEL is the sound of a difficult situation made worse by an unwillingness and an inability to play nice. If slotting it in a genre makes it easier for you to understand, just so you have something to file it under, mark it down as Heavy. With a capital H.

But not heavy that's in any way predictable, BUNUEL'S amalgam of angular rhythms, drum salvos, blitzkrieging guitars and vocals that sound more like threats than promises is post-punk, proto heavy and arty up the ass. Arty as in avant-garde noise.  BUNUEL's newest Killers Like Us -- the third part of a trilogy that started with A Resting Place for Strangers, and then The Easy Way Out – is a killer addition to the canon of good music for bad people.

Produced by a near-super group of global significance BUNUEL boasts the sound work of the Italian trio of guitarist Xabier Iriondo (Afterhours), the bass of Andrea Lombardini, and the drums of Francesco Valente (Il Teatro Degli Orrori, Snare Drum Exorcism, and Lume ), along with the vocals of Eugene S. Robinson (OXBOW).

Xabier (drums) is the deus-ex-machina of some of Italy's most adventurous musical projects and sound manipulator for dozens of bands on more than 50 records with major and independent labels whose work has seen him playing live on three continents.  Andrea Lombardini (bass), a composer, producer and electric bass beast has been playing in Italian and international jazz, pop, rock and just about everything with everyone including most significantly David Binney, Mark de Clive-Lowe, Jason Lindner, Richard Julian, Michel Godard and many more.  Francesco Valente (drums), composer, percussionist, improviser and sound extremist, is a vital slice of the Italian rock band Il Teatro Degli Orrori.  And Eugene S. Robinson, vocals, lyricist and owner of the .44 magnum revolver on the record cover has spent the last 30 plus years with American art terrorists OXBOW.

Recorded in the midst of the pandemic by Andrea De Marchi. Vocals by Monte Vallier, KILLERS LIKE US was mixed by Giulio Ragno Favero (Zu) and Mastered by Giovanni Versari (Muse). The album will see release on February 18, 2022, on CD/LP/Digital by Profound Lore Records and La Tempesta International.

Track Listing:
1. Hornets
2. When God Used A Rope
3. It’s All mine
4. Crack Shot
5. Stocklock
6. Roll Call
7. When We Talk
8. A Prison Of Measured Time
9. For The Cops
10. Even The Jungle

Artist: BUNUEL
Title: Killers Like Us
Label: Profound Lore Records
Catalog No.: PFL-267CD
Release Date: Feb 18, 2022

Please Note, this item is PRE-ORDER ITEM! All items are expected to ship by Feb 18, 2022 release date. *Any orders containing a "Pre-Order" item will ship together when the pre-order ships. Please make a separate order if you wish to receive non pre-order items before the pre-order ship date.

New Zealand’s THE TEMPLE, an aural entity comprised of P.K. (guitars, bass, vocals) and J.W. (drums, lyrics), play viscerally morphing and shape-shifting death/black metal of an esoteric nature.  Their self-titled debut album is an impenetrable sonic monolith that encompasses six immense tracks of tectonic shifting, inharmonious, honed and focused death/black metal of crushing weight, searing ambience and immense magnitude. 

With the sprawling audial tapestry THE TEMPLE have laid out with their debut, the conveyance of this vision is one reflected through death worship and an invocation of plague, war, misery, and the cosmic apocalypse channeled through the spirit of misanthropic Gnosticism.

Track Listing:
1. Prophecy Omega
2. Hell Incarcerate
3. Martyr Of The Tyrant
4. Pale Horse Of Pestilence
5. Wolf In The Vortex
6. Void Of Scars

Artist: THE TEMPLE
Title: The Temple
Label: Profound Lore Records
Catalog No.: PFL-266
Release Date: Nov 19, 2021
UPC CD: 843563144091

On their debut album "The Ailing Facade", AEVITERNE look beyond the destruction of flesh or the punishment of the spirit, instead turning inward to focus on the abyss of consciousness itself: the curse of sentience; the futility of productivity; the breakdown of consensus reality; humanity’s twin drives to propagate and destroy itself, locked in permanent perverse competition.

AEVITERNE formed in 2015 as a vehicle for guitarist and vocalist Garett Bussanick to continue exploring some of the musical ideas his previous band Flourishing pursued, particularly the fusion of death metal with rhythms and textures inspired by harsh post-punk and industrial music. Bussanick, Flourishing bassist Eric Rizk, and drummer Ian Jacyszyn (Miasmatic Necrosis) unveiled the Sireless EP in 2018. The years since that brief but powerful introductory statement were spent not in dormancy, but in painstaking composition and relentless experimentation in pursuit of the densely textured, multifaceted sound of The Ailing Facade, and also saw AEVITERNE’s lineup expand to include guitarist Samuel Smith (Artificial Brain, Luminous Vault).

The result is an album that plunges listeners into hellish headspaces of dread, anxiety, and unease through dynamic songwriting and deliberate, nearly narrative sequencing rather than effects pedal abuse, made even queasier and more disorienting through subtle electronics and additional layers of percussion, culminating in the instrumental title track and epic closer “Dream in Lies.” Immolation’s harsh technicality and the psychedelic menace of Godflesh can serve as reference points, but don’t fully capture the all-devouring alchemy of The Ailing Facade.

The Ailing Facade was engineered and mixed by Jacyszyn, with drum engineering and mastering by Colin Marston (Gorguts, Krallice). Artwork and layout by Mark McCoy (Full of Hell, Pig Destroyer).

Track Listing:
1. Denature
2. Still The Hollows’ Sway
3. Penitent
4. The Reeking Suns
5. The Gaunt Sky
6. Obeyance
7. The Ailing Façade
8. Dream In Lies

Artist: AEVITERNE
Title: The Ailing Facade
Label: Profound Lore Records
Catalog No.: PFL-265
Release Date: March 18, 2022
UPC CD: 843563149188

Ryan Patterson has spent over two-and-a-half decades adding to the town’s legacy with his impassioned and activist-minded approach to punk, his rigorous work ethic in the local music scene, his distinctive graphic design work, and his contributions to nearly every aspect of DIY culture.  After twelve years fronting the forward-thinking art-inflected punk outfit Coliseum, Patterson looked to the urban centers of London, New York, and Berlin for new sonic inspiration, drawing from the passion of his hardcore roots while tapping into the sounds of classic EBM and post-punk artists for FOTOCRIME.
 
On his third full-length “Heart Of Crime”, Patterson continues to explore what he refers to as “electric Southern romanticism.” It’s an album that throbs with pulsing synths, hammering drum machines, and economic guitar hooks. Where so many artists have leveraged these tools towards stern stoicism, Patterson had a different objective for their emotional resonance.
 
This vision has been consistent across the entire FOTOCRIME catalog, but where 2020’s “South of Heaven” found Patterson’s songs supplemented by Steve Albini-recorded live drums, a different approach was required for its follow-up.  Consequently, “Heart Of Crime” is the austere response to quarantine life; the most direct and personal thing Patterson has done and the first time Patterson has recorded and mixed an album all by himself.
 
On “Heart Of Crime”, we hear the earnestness of the heartland fused with Patterson’s ties to the asceticism of the urban underground, like a post-punk Leonard Cohen. We’re also hearing an aspect of Fotocrime that’s a response and reaction to the times and available resources. It’s a record that yearns for a world outside our doors, that begs to be blasted on a massive PA in a seedy nightclub or a black-walled venue. It sounds steeped in isolation and reflection, but it reminds us of the communal experience of getting lost in a sea of people while the sound of a bass drum kicks our chests.

Track Listing:
1. Heart Of Crime
2. Electric Café
3. So So Low
4. Delicate Prey
5. Crystal Caves
6. Politi Policia Polizei
7. Industry Pig
8. Zoë Rising
9. Inferno Rebels
10. Learn To Love The Lash
11. Skinned Alive

Artist: FOTOCRIME
Title: Heart Of Crime
Label: Profound Lore Records
Catalog No.: PFL259CD
Release Date LP: Aug 27, 2021

VOUNA is the project of multi-instrumentalist and composer Yianna Bekris. With her second full-length album “Atropos”, she unveils a towering and singular doom metal wonder in a unique visioning reminiscent of My Dying Bride, Paradise Lost, and Evoken.  Upon the thick foundation of doom, multiple musical textures intertwine into her sound: atmospheric black metal, dungeon synth, darkwave, film scores, and rebetiko.  It is through these woven sonic tapestries that Bekris creates vivid atmospheres expressing the myriad emotions surrounding death, mourning, and suicidal ideation.  “Atropos”, named for the Greek fate who cut the thread of life thus determining the final fate for mortals, not only conveys the inevitability of death, but also explores its contrasting and dynamic nature through immersive compositions representing despair, loneliness, anxiety, peace, and dignity. 
VOUNA’s debut was recorded at the Owl Lodge in Olympia, WA in 2017 and subsequently released by Artemisia Records in 2018.  Though her debut was synth-focused, “Atropos” gives the guitars more weight and space while retaining an abundance of vintage '90s synthesizers, and additionally utilizes analog synths and folk and orchestral instrumentation for dramatic effect.  “Atropos” sees her further expand VOUNA’s sound through the collaboration with several guest musicians, including Nathan Weaver (Wolves in the Throne Room) on vocals, Asia Kindred Moore (Sangre de Muerdago, Solace) on the harp, Entrail on violin, and members of the VOUNA live lineup playing synth and electric lap steel.

Track Listing:

1. Highest Mountain
2. Vanish
3. What Once Was (Reprise)
4. Grey Sky
5. What Once Was

Artist: VOUNA
Title: Atropos
Label: Profound Lore Records
Catalog No.: PFL-258
Release Date: July 16, 2021

Track Listing:
1. Stow
2. Of Straw And Cloth
3. Grail
4. Weptune
5. Hexodeus

Description:

“Hagbulbia” is the seventh PORTAL full-length album and serves as the paranormal companion piece to AVOW. “Hagbulbia” sees PORTAL at their most abnormal and spectral.

Artist: PORTAL
Title: Hagbulbia
Label: Profound Lore Records
Catalog No.: PFL-257
Release Date: May 28, 2021
UPC CD: 843563136614

Originating from Austin, TX, EXPANDER has subverted traditional band trajectories to receive global recognition of their unique brand of futuristic metalpunk since forming in 2014.  With their second full-length album, "Neuropunk Boostergang", the group aggressively channels the anxieties foisted on us from oppressive systems using every weapon at their disposal: pummeling rhythms, transcendent melodies and wild vocal deliveries that keep listeners on guard for whatever might come crawling from the wastes next.

This record marks the band's return to God City, again utilizing the state-of-the-art studio to capture every nuance of the raw energy contained within these potent audio capsules. The result is a glimpse into a barbarous future where traditional riffs get flipped on their head, anti-gravity rhythms pull you in different directions and supernatural voices jack-in to your skull to command attention.

Should we retain our humanity in the face of constant neurological assault? Is the physical body altogether obsolete? What otherworldly landscapes plagued by grotesque overlords will we find ourselves surviving next? With Neuropunk Boostergang, Expander mercilessly answers these questions with the fist of flesh and mind of machine.

Track Listing:
1. Wretched Warez
2. Megacorp
3. Hyper-Flesh Aedificium
4. Waste Ranger
5. Cryptosteal
6. Loyalty Illusion (R.A.T.)
7. Rejunkulizer
8. Neuropunk Boostergang
9. Obsoletor
10. C.O.III: Quest for a Future

Artist: EXPANDER
Title: Neuropunk Boostergang
Label: Profound Lore Records
Catalog No.: PFL-247LP
Release Date: Aug 21, 2020

The debut collaboration album from doom metal giants BELL WITCH and AERIAL RUIN, the solo folk project of singer/songwriter Erik Moggridge, under the moniker of STYGIAN BOUGH is a culmination of the work of both artists as witnessed previously on BELL WITCH's three full-length albums where Moggrdige has contributed guest vocals.  With each succeeding BELL WITCH release, we have seen Moggridge's involvement with BELL WITCH developing, growing and getting more elaborate.  "Stygian Bough: Vol 1", produced by Randall Dunn (Sunn 0))), Wolves In The Throne Room, Anna Von Hausswolff), follows up BELL WITCH's colossal "Mirror Reaper" opus with Moggrdige actually being involved in the creative and writing process with the BELL WITCH duo of Dylan Desmond (bass/vocals) and Jesse Shreibman (drums/synthesizers/vocals).  Not only does STYGIAN BOUGH expand and broaden the alliance of BELL WITCH and AERIAL RUIN, but with AERIAL RUIN contributing to the songwriting of this dedicated collaboration and incorporating his signature and alluring style of emotionally driven folk, along with taking the lead vocal position on this, to BELL WITCH’s caliber of unearthly towering doom, STYGIAN BOUGH becomes its own singular doom metal entity unparalleled.

Track Listing:
1. The Bastard Wind
2. Heaven Torn Low I (The Passage)
3. Heaven Torn Low II (The Toll)
4. Prelude
5. The Unbodied Air

Artist: BELL WITCH and AERIAL RUIN
Title: Stygian Bough: Volume 1 (2LP)
Label: Profound Lore Records
Catalog No.: PFL-244LP
Release Date: June 26, 2020

The new OLD MAN GLOOM album "Darkness Of Being" (aka Seminar XI) sees the notorious experimental super-group forge on their legacy after a slight suspension in uncertainty following the passing of bassist/vocalist Caleb Scofield.  It was decided that the remaining members Aaron Turner (Sumac/Isis), Nate Newton (Converge), and drummer Santos Montano would continue to forge on with OLD MAN GLOOM and would bring in Scofield's former Cave In bandmate, Stephen Brodsky, to take Caleb's place amongst the pulse. 

"Darkness Of Being" continues OLD MAN GLOOM’s shenanigans following their "Ape Of God" albums (the albums where the band trolled everyone by releasing two different albums with the same album title amongst bewilderment, amusement, and outrage from people on the internet).  Through monolithic sonic tapestries sewn throughout, "Darkness Of Being" blossoms as a moving tribute to Scofield where the band have even incorporated material that Scofield had laid down previously for new OMG music.  "Darkness Of Being", which was recorded and mixed by three acclaimed heavy music producers, namely Matt Bayles, Kurt Ballou, and Randall Dunn, is another towering OLD MAN GLOOM masterwork through earth crumbling riffs, post-hardcore brutality, sprawling noise transmissions, experimental ambient sonic subdivisions and epic impenetrable melancholy.

Track Listing:
1. Procession Of The Wounded
2. Heel To Toe
3. The Bleeding Sun
4. Canto De Santos
5. Death Rhymes
6. In Your Name
7. Your Love Is Bravery

Artist: OLD MAN GLOOM
Title: Darkness Of Being
Label: Profound Lore Records
Catalog No.: PFL-241
Release Date: May 15, 2020

The new OLD MAN GLOOM album "Light Of Meaning" (aka Seminar VIII) sees the notorious experimental super-group forge on their legacy after a slight suspension in uncertainty following the passing of bassist/vocalist Caleb Scofield.  It was decided that the remaining members Aaron Turner (Sumac/Isis), Nate Newton (Converge), and drummer Santos Montano would continue to forge on with OLD MAN GLOOM and would bring in Scofield's former Cave In bandmate, Stephen Brodsky, to take Caleb's place amongst the pulse. 

"Light Of Meaning" continues OLD MAN GLOOM's shenanigans following their "Ape Of God" albums (the albums where the band trolled everyone by releasing two different albums with the same album title amongst bewilderment, amusement, and outrage from people on the internet).  Through monolithic sonic tapestries sewn throughout, "Light Of Meaning" blossoms as a moving tribute to Scofield where the band have even incorporated material that Scofield had laid down previously for new OMG music.  "Light Of Meaning", which was recorded and mixed by three acclaimed heavy music producers, namely Matt Bayles, Kurt Ballou, and Randall Dunn, is another towering OLD MAN GLOOM masterwork through earth crumbling riffs, post-hardcore brutality, sprawling noise transmissions, experimental ambient sonic subdivisions and epic impenetrable melancholy.

Track Listing:
1. EMF
2. Wrath Of The Weary
3. True Volcano
4. Final Defeat
5. Calling You Home
6. By Love All Is Healed

Artist: OLD MAN GLOOM
Title: Light Of Meaning (CD)
Label: Profound Lore Records
Catalog No.: PFL-240
Release Date: May 22, 2020

With their debut album "Reflections", GODTHRYMM have unleashed a colossal slab of heavy, mournful, yet pounding traditional doom that harks back to the classic era of '90s UK doom/Peaceville Records.  A massive step up from the debut EP, "Reflections" is the result of Glencross taking GODTHRYMM further into the realm of doom into more darker, melancholic, and towering realms.  Through Glencross' soaring passionate vocals complimenting his powerful riffs along with Steels' thunderous percussion giving the GODTHRYMM rhythm section that massive glorious tone, "Reflections" is a testament to the glory days of UK doom while making its statement as a new force of modern day doom metal to behold.

Track Listing:
1. Monsters Lurk Herein
2. Among The Exalted
3. The Sea As My Grave
4. We Are The Dead
5. The Light Of You
6. The Grand Reclamation
7. Cursed Are The Many
8. Chasmic Sorrows

Artist: GODTHRYMM
Title: Reflections (CD)
Label: Profound Lore Records
Catalog No.: PFL-236
Release Date: Feb 14, 2020

The new FOTOCRIME (the new dark wave project of R. Patterson from acclaimed hardcore punk band Coliseum) full-length album "South Of Heaven", the second full-length chapter in the project’s narrative, FOTOCRIME has found comfort on the fringe.

"South Of Heaven" is the backlit highway slithering from 2018's "Principle Of Pain", which bowed at the altar of post-street punks Blitz while nodding at the megawatt gleam of Depeche Mode and churn of Red Lorry Yellow Lorry. The stories comprising "South of Heaven" are winding and boundless, unfolding with unexpected paths and hairpin turns. Touching the myths of Saturn and Phaethon and mining the lives of Bruno Ganz and Francis Bacon, the album carves a landscape that spans both earthly and astral planes.

It is a record for late night drives, a soundtrack for headlights illuminating the horizon.  Produced by J. Robbins (Jawbox) with sessions recorded by legendary engineer Steve Albini (Shellac, Big Black, Nirvana etc) at Electrical Audio in Chicago, "South Of Heaven" features guest apperances by Hayden Menzies (Metz), Nick Thieneman (Young Widows), Janet Morgan (Channels), Erik Denno (Kerosene 454), and Rob Moran (Unbroken) and continues with a swim in the open wounds and spilt blood of heartbreak, a harp-tinged appeal for care and company, and a postmortem of derailed destinies.  Crackling guitars and stutter stepping synth making songs on here bona-fide grunge-wave burners.

Track Listing:
1. Invisible
2. Foto On Wire
3. Love Is A Devil
4. Up Above The World
5. Hold Me In The Night
6. Never Fall Out Of Love
7. Expulsion from Paradise
8. Blue Smoke
9. Chaos & Cosmos
10. Tough Skin

Artist: FOTOCRIME
Title: South Of Heaven (CD)
Label: Profound Lore Records
Catalog No.: PFL235
Release Date: March 13, 2020

With their new album "Annihilism", UK death metal unit VACIVUS will be poised to become one of the isle's most prominent death metal bands.  Impressions were made with their "Rite Of Ascension" demo EP, their "Nuclear Chaos" 7" and ultimately their "Temple Of The Abyss" debut LP from 2017 which saw the band make their stain within the UK death metal scene.  "Annihilism" though will see VACIVUS will make their impact with more punishing and unrelenting force by offering a serpentine death metal treasure that threads the fibers of dark unyielding brutality, technical proficiency and refined death metal musicality of the highest plateau.

An ideal and seamless myriad of what a modern-day death metal offering should embroider, "Annihilism" takes the VACVIUS sonic paradigm to a level beyond anything they've previously done.  With the masterful production courtesy of Greg Chandler (Esoteric) in his Priory Recording studios with final mastering via Dan Lowndes, "Annihilism" benefits from an exemplary death metal sound which holds an archetypal aesthetic on what makes "Annihilism" such a dense and complex, yet escalating and suffocating work of true death metal artistry.

Track Listing:

1. Post Templum
2. Of Ruinous Essence
3. Terminus
4. Shards
5. In Fine Dierum
6. Annihilism
7. Indignus
8. Ecdysis

Artist: VACIVUS
Title: Annihilism (CD)
Label: Profound Lore Records
Catalog No.: PFL233
Release Date: Oct 25, 2019

The inevitable regeneration of LORD MANTIS occurred when vocalist/bassist Charlie Fell and guitarist/vocalist Andrew Markuszewski decided to mend ties and once again join forces for a new renewed union to properly carry on the LORD MANTIS legacy, mired in chaos and virulence, by honouring the memory of late drummer/founder Bill Bumgardner with their new album "Universal Death Church".

With guitarist Ken Sorceron of Abigail Williams fame (who also joined LORD MANTIS on "Death Mask") and new drummer Bryce Butler, along with honorary vocalist/member Dylan O'Toole of Indian, "Universal Death Church" is the result of a band who has overcome dark and chaotic chapters and bitter internal feuds to set out once again to raise the bar of extreme music after the suicide of a key founding member in the ranks.

"Universal Death Church" sees LORD MANTIS with a new sense of purpose and focus.  More developed and immeasurable, vast and towering, "Universal Death Church" continues the doomed and blackened depraved metal paradigm that has become the signature resonating palpitation surrounding the LORD MANTIS sound.  The threading between punishing, torturous yet direct and at times tangible industrial-influenced riffing with the more abstract, dark, blackened surreal-like crawling and swift passages paint a new disturbing sonic portrait for the band. The renewed union of LORD MANTIS became akin to that of repairing tissue of an unnamable and vile organism.  Leveling up the beast. 

Having that infamous reputation of being one of the more vexed acts within the extreme metal scene, as amassed on previous releases such as 2012’s "Pervertor" and most-notably their 2014 controversial "Death Mask" LP, "Universal Death Church" ups the LORD MANTIS ante in pretty much every category; the intensity, darkness, heaviness, and of course the deviance and degeneracy. 

TRACKLIST
1. Santa Muerte
2. God's Animal
3. Qliphotic Alpha
4. Consciousness.exe
5. Low Entropy Narcosis
6. Damocles Falls
7. Fleshworld.
8. Hole

Artist: LORD MANTIS
Title: Universal Death Church (CD)
Label: Profound Lore Records
Catalog No.: PFL-232
Release Date: Nov 22, 2019

Formed in Oakland, CA, HEAVEN'S CLUB began as the project of Shiv Mehra during downtime while off tour with his band Deafheaven. It then expanded to include Deafheaven drummer Dan Tracy, Nadia Kury, Chris Natividad, Ross Peacock and Luis Mayorga. Finding ground in introspective lyricism and progressive, ethereal sonics, HEAVEN'S CLUB achieves a careful balance between punching urgency and distant atmosphere.

Recorded at Santo Studios in Oakland, CA, Heaven's Club producer and engineer Andrew Oswald acts as a seventh member and brings rich texture and nuance to Mehra's vision.

Of the project, Mehra says: "Heaven's Club is the fog of memory and insubstantial fantasy. The songs reside in the liminal space between love and the end of suffering. They reach toward an ambiguous desire for peace - a deeply felt longing.

1. Mnemonic
2. Dreamboat
3. Alone In Dresden
4. Great Grief
5. Here There and Nowhere
6. Godiva
7. The Frail
8. Mother
9. Strange Times

Artist: HEAVEN'S CLUB
Title: Here There and Nowhere (CD)
Label: Profound Lore Records
Release Date: Sept 27, 2019

Australian death/black metal unit CONSUMMATION have completed work on their debut full-length album “The Great Solar Hunter” set for release on CD/2xLP/Digital on June 7.  CONSUMMATION is the brainchild of vocalist/guitarist Craig Young (ex-Impetuous Ritual) who is joined by drummer David Hayley (of technical death metal wizards Psycroptic) and bassist Joel Rademaker.  Alongside the central CONSUMMATION trio, “The Great Solar Hunter” also features guitarist John Gossard (Dispirit/Asunder/The Gault/Weakling) among its ranks, Gossard lending his guitar work to this colossal work in helping to elevate it to and even darker, more warped and epic plateau.

“The Great Solar Hunter” succeeds the band’s 2017 “Ritual Severance” EP (Invictus Productions) which was the follow-up to their 2012 self-titled demo.  “The Great Solar Hunter” is the result of the band’s serpentine-like build up since inception, to a impenetrable demonic yet monolithic sound.   The band’s elongated tracks are a key element that define their sonic vastness.  Dark, murky, atmosphere-drenched dissonance and twisted guitar riff mutations flow through tension and intense passage while they shape-shift towards building something even more of grandeur; culminating in epic and moving moments of melancholic majesty and triumph.  It is through such characteristics that give CONSUMMATION a sense of singularity and noteworthiness within the mire of extreme death/black metal.

Track Listing:
1. Ophidian Crown
2. The Great Solar Hunter
3. Phosphor Libation
4. Apotheoses
5. The Eminent Fires Of Sacrifice

Artist: CONSUMMATION
Title: The Great Solar Hunter
Label: Profound Lore Records

For their fourth full-length album "Emergence", Denver, Colorado doom-prog band DREADNOUGHT follow-up their 2017 "A Wake In Sacred Waves" acclamation with an album that takes their singular multiplex and pictorial sound to new sonic realms even more heavily textile, complex, and vastly designed.  "Emergence" sees the four-piece, consisting of vocalist/guitarist/flute player Kelly Schilling, drummer/sax player Jordan Clancy, keyboardist/vocalist Lauren Vieria, and bassist/mandolin player Kevin Handlonl, delving more into heavier and darker sonic territory as well, an aspect that was evident with "A Wake…" but has become fully realized with "Emergence".

There are a multitude of layers that establish DREADNOUGHT's sound, making them one of the more unique sounding bands in today's doom/dark/progressive metal circles.  Consisting of a myriad of influences that seamlessly sew their sound together, from prog, doom, folk, jazz, classical/chamber, avant-garde, and even a little bit of black metal managing to find its way into DREADNOUGHT's audial tapestry, "Emergence" is the culmination of the band's continued development and evolution, one that began with 2013's "Lifewoven" LP followed by 2015's "Bridging Realms" and the aforementioned 2017 LP "A Wake…". 

Thematically "Emergence" resonates with elements of flame, tying together similar structures between the ancient connection of nature's most destructive yet purifying forces and the human condition.  Through the four searing tracks comprising "Emergence", the realities of this age-old cycle of rebirth, beginning with chaotic annihilation of what is, and leaving behind nourishing ash to enrich what is to come. A new being arises from the smolder, forged by the fires of self-destruction and trials of every lifetime before it.

Track Listing:
1. Besieged
2. Still
3. Pestilent
4. Tempered
5. The Waking Realm

Artist: DREADNOUGHT
Title: Emergence
Label: Profound Lore Records
Release Date: May 10, 2019

The ever-evolving quartet VAURA follows up their 2013 album “The Missing” almost six years later with “Sables” their most refined and contemplative release yet. Introspective and somber, “Sables” finds the band shedding most of its post-metal heaviness in favor of experiments with brooding kosmische musik and the more avant-garde elements of new wave. Consisting of Josh Strawn (Azar Swan) on vocals, guitar and synthesizers, Kevin Hufnagel (Gorguts, Dysrhythmia) on guitar, Toby Driver (Kayo Dot) on bass, and Charlie Schmid (Tombs) on drums and electronics, VAURA engage ever more with their UK and German prog/art rock influences to grandiose and eerie effect. While still retaining the distinctive and specific style carved out on the band’s first two releases (“Selenelion” in 2010 and “The Missing” one year later) “Sables” is the all-vital third LP, a concise collection of meditative compositions on endings and extinctions. Brilliantly complemented by the mixing and production work of legendary UK producer Peter Walsh (Scott Walker, Peter Gabriel) VAURA have delivered their best sounding, most intricate and realized album yet.

Track Listing:
1. Espionage
2. Zwischen
3. The Lightless Ones
4. The Ruins (Hymne)
5. No Guardians
6. Eidolon
7. Basilisk (The Infinite Corpse)
8. Sables

Artist: VAURA
Title: Sables
Label: Profound Lore Records
Release Date: April 26, 2019

Exhaling the ashes from acrimony, TOTALED materialized in 2017 and recorded its ferociously blackened-hardcore debut album “Lament”.  While lyrically ruminating in the abstract emptiness of an impervious void and grappling with paradoxical duality, the audial gloom of “Lament” conjures sorrowing burial strings that furiously discharge into an onslaught of punishing resonance wrought with crushing despair, depression, and scavenging hopelessness.  Pummelling blasts and d-beats pound into peripherally orbiting shadows of the pixelated black, beneath the pulverizing density of nihilistic bass distortion in a mournful offering of somber funeral strains; The digested celestial nothingness of the eaten, frozen in dimensions of cyclical nooses and gnawing bacterial ether.  Conceived incarnations of sorrowful mists from the harvest - Bereaving the morbid light in which we suffer.

Track Listing:
1. Deplete
2. As Below
3. Eclipsed
4. Transience
5. Hypnosis
6. Desolate
7. Ominus
8. Bereft

Artist: TOTALED
Title: Lament
Label: Profound Lore Records
Release Date: March 29, 2019

Texas based elemental dark metal ensemble DEAD TO A DYING WORLD have completed work on their poignant new epoch “Elegy” set for release on CD/2LP/Digital on April 19th.  Following up 2015’s ambitious “Litany” endeavor, “Elegy” sees the septet take their creative spirit to a new apotheosis resulting in the collective’s most focused and moving opus yet.  With “Elegy”, DEAD TO A DYING WORLD craft their vast aural landscape in such flourish, one consisting of seamless of sonic textures guided by the likes of apocalyptic dark metal, doom metal, and epic cinematic post rock.  With a musical structure that consists of three monolithic central tracks reinforced by three stirring interval segments, “Elegy” presents a new grandiosity in DEAD TO A DYING WORLD’s audial palette.  One of the key musical components in “Elegy” are the monolithic melodic surges that thrive throughout “Elegy’s” discourse, whether it's through the more aggressive post-black metal-ish flourishes that counter with the more melancholic yet immense melodic components that truly begin to define the band’s sound.  The dual vocal projection of Mike Yeager and Heidi Moore continues to serve as a defining staple while the band also continue to expand their instrumentation, solidified even more through Eva Vonne’s viola which continues to bridge and become a central element in DEAD TO A DYING WORLD’s sound as well as including outer-sound instruments like expanded experimental percussion, hurdy gurdy, hammond organ/piano, and concert bass. 

Once again produced by Billy Anderson, “Elegy” being one of the acclaimed producer’s most riveting productions he’s done in recent times, “Elegy” once again sees the band welcoming a small cast of guest musicians.  Featuring guest appearances by Thor Harris (ex-Swans) on four tracks alone, along with guest vocals by Jarboe (ex-Swans), Dylan Desmond (Bell Witch), and Emil Rapstine (The Angelus), the contributions from the new contingent of guests helps elevate the narrative of “Elegy” to a new plateau.

Artist: DEAD TO A DYING WORLD
Title: Elegy
Label: Profound Lore Records
Release Date: April 19, 2019

Official re-issue, and the first time ever on vinyl format, of ABRUPTUM’s notorious third album “Vi Sonus Veris Nigrae Malitiaes”.  Originally released in 1996 on infamous cult black metal label Full Moon Productions (in which this re-issue is licensed from), Sweden’s ABRUPTUM were always seen as one of the most bizarre, strangest, and otherworldly black metal entity.  Masterminded by the late IT, known as one of the most unique black metal musicians ever, ABRUPTUM was christened by black metal godfather Euronymous of Mayhem, upon releasing the first two ABRUPTUM albums on his Deathlike Silence Productions label, as the “audial essence of pure black evil”. 

“Vi Sonus…” is the only ABRUPTUM release that solely features IT, the true visionary of ABRUPTUM, on his own without the assistance of any other musicians.  Recorded in 1995 at Peter Tagtgren’s Abyss Studios, in what ended up being the most bizarre recording session Tagtgren has ever endured, “Vi Sonus…” consists of one long improvised track clocking in at an hour’s length (edited meticulously to fit the 2xLP format), written and performed solely by IT.  It consists blackened horrorscapes through torturous audial sounds of noisy droning guitars, never ending feedback, thunderous pounding drums, painful screams and moans of agony and despair.

This official vinyl edition of “Vi Sonus…” is a limited one-time pressing of 500 units for the die-hard ABRUPTUM fan.

Track List:

1. Vi Sonus Veris Nigrae Malitiaes

Label: Profound Lore Records
Media Type: CD
Color: Black
Release date: January 18, 2019

Seattle, Washington's HISSING engage in dark, dissonant, cacophonous, inverted death metal noise and with their debut LP, "Permanent Destitution", the three-piece have created a nihilistic vision of deranged otherworldly audial pandemonium.  A soundscape of pure enveloping darkness and unrelenting chaos, "Permanent Destitution" deconstructs and builds itself through the walls and layers of pummeling audial turmoil and disarray generated through twisted angular guitar work and fretboard annihilation, surgically cold yet constructed and calculated death march drum ornamentations and monolithic bass pulsations that become interspersed with an overall dark overbearing ambience.  With already being at the mercy of HISSING's punishing sound fabric, that added touch of droning noise segments, also crucial to HISSING's sound, mixed with the doomy industrial components become that final element to make "Permanent Destitution" a towering monument of primal avant-deathnoise.

Formed in 2014, HISSING had already made quite the reputation as a force to be reckoned with on the West Coast through various live appearances (which included a major US tour with Sunn 0))), impressions made with their 2015 demo, and most notably with their 2016 self-titled 7” EP released by Southern Lord along with last year’s massive split with Sutekh Hexen (Flenser). 

Track Listing:
01: Backwards Descent
02: Pablum Abundance
03: Eulogy in Squalor
04: It Without More
05: Cascading Failures
06: Perdurance

Artist: HISSING
Title: Permanent Destitution
Label: Profound Lore Records
Release Date: October 26, 2018

BLISS SIGNAL, formed within the last year by James Kelly (WIFE, Altar Of Plagues) and respected UK DJ/Producer MUMDANCE, is a new project which sees Kelly return to making harsher and heavier music with a guitar for the first time since the last and final groundbreaking ALTAR OF PLAGUES album “Teethed Glory & Injury”.  While not a direct continuation from Altar Of Plagues, the music enveloping the BLISS SIGNAL debut album captures the vibe and essence of the more ambient and experimental moments found in Altar Of Plagues, most notably on the final Altar Of Plagues album, almost as an extension of those moments in what would be have been further explored if Kelly were to continue developing the Altar Of Plagues sound through the expansiveness of what he could create with his guitar.

BLISS SIGNAL though is a different a new musical expression coming from Kelly’s musical repertoire.  Teaming up with MUMDANCE who brings in the heavy electronic element to BLISS SIGNAL through modular noise, heavy beats, and vast synth soundscapes, the expansive sound fabric of the BLISS SIGNAL debut album is one awash with a massive wall of unrelenting sound, intense atmosphere, and shimmering enveloping ambience.  Ultimately, a sonic reflection of the very moniker that Kelly and Mumdance conjured for this latest musical venture of theirs.

Track Listing:
1. Slow Scan
2. Bliss Signal
3. Surge
4. N16 Drift
5. Floodlight
6. Endless Rish
7. Tranq
8. Ambi Drift
9. Swarm (bonus track)
10. 4am Drift (bonus track)

Artist: BLISS SIGNAL
Title: Bliss Signal
Label: Profound Lore Records
Media Type: CD
Release Date: Sept 28, 2018

Combining elements of horror-film soundtracks, psychedelic doom, and atmospheric noise, NYC/Portland-based instrumental duo INSECT ARK presents their newest record, “Marrow Hymns”, to be released on Profound Lore Records, Feb 23 2018.

Comprised of Dana Schechter (bass, lap steel guitar, synthesizers) and Ashley Spungin (drums, synthesizers), Insect Ark’s intensely visual music weaves interludes of fragile beauty with crushing passages of swirling doom, spinning like a backwards fever dream.  “Marrow Hymns”is a wordless song, a hypnotic voice that screams and whispers from a place deep in the furrows, from the bones, from the blood.

Defying easy categorization, INSECT ARK’s uncommon sound is in part the amalgamation of these two women’s passions: Schechter’s sinister bass lines and unconventional use of lap steel guitar (and her complete omission of electric guitar), and Spungin’s lucid, exacting drumming and synth work with her own hand-built analog noise pedals (Ormus Electronics).

“Marrow Hymns” was recorded and mixed with engineer Ethan Donaldson at Mozart St Studios in Brooklyn, NY, over the course of eighteen months. With the two halves of Insect Ark residing on opposite coasts, the album was largely skeletal in form upon commencement of recording. Overdubs and further writing/arrangements were done after Spungin’s return to Portland in the isolation of Schechter’s home studio. The sense of distance and vast emptiness remained intact in the songs, built out over many long nights. Marrow Hymns’ song themes of displacement, loss, and isolation are personal journals of that time period, as both members found themselves simultaneously experiencing existential crises. However, the album also tells a story of strength and determination.

Tracklist:

1.Thelema
2.Arp 9
3.In The Nest
4.Skin Walker
5.Slow Raw
6.Sea Harps
7.Tarnish
8.Windless
9.Daath

Label: Profound Lore Records
Media type: 12" LP
Release date: February 23, 2018
Genre: Doom / Noise

2x 12" LP

With their new album “Never Forever” France’s premiere extreme doom metal band MONARCH continue their singular style of punishing ritualistic amplifier worship and take it even more towards melancholic territory with their new LP.  Even more ghostly, atmospheric, and haunting than their predecessor.

Tracklist:
1. Of Night With Knives
2. Song Of The Void
3. Cadaverine
4. Diamant Noir
5. Lilith

PFL 167:

12" vinly EP - etched B Side

PALLBEARER’s latest EP is a limited collectible 12” one-sided EP featuring three songs on Side A and a designed etching on Side B. The three songs featured on this exclusive EP is a reprised/re-mastered version of the band’s previous single “Fear & Fury” which was previously released as part of the Decibel magazine Flexi series to coincide with PALLBEARER’s appearance on last year’s Decibel Magazine Tour. The other two exclusive tracks on this EP is a cover of Black Sabbath’s “Over and Over” and a cover of Type O Negative’s “Love You To Death”.

The re-press has a regular LP jacket and and a two-sided insert. It is limited to 500 copies of each color.

Tracklist:
Side A:
1. Fear & Fury
2. Over And Over
3. Love You To Death

Brooklyn, NY instrumental post metal power trio SANNHET formed in late 2010 and since then have been recognized as one of the most promising bands within the genre.  Their last album, their sophomore LP “Revisionist” (Flenser Records) that followed their promising debut, 2013’s “Known Flood” (Consouling Sounds), was praised across the board, one of the most celebrated albums in this specific genre of that year, and now with their new full-length album “So Numb” SANNHET have undoubtedly delivered their most transcendent album to date.

 With “So Numb” the band enlisted respected producer Peter Katis (The National, Interpol, Japandroids, Kurt Vile) who was essential in helping the trio reach a new level with their sound, going beyond the typical trappings of post metal and expanding it even more into the realms that share an aesthetic with the likes of such genres as electronic, experimental, and ambient while still upholding the blueprint for the heavy and punishing SANNHET sound.  With “So Numb”, the trio have created songs with a stronger focus on songwriting and on creating stronger and more memorable evocative melodies that permeate throughout the entire album making “So Numb” a listening experience like no other within the genre.

Tracklist
1. Indigo Illusion
2. Sapphire
3. So Numb
4. Fernbeds 
5. Salts 
6. Way Out 
7. Secondary Arrows 
8. Sleep Well 
9. Wind Up

Label: Profound Lore Records
Media type: CD
Release date: August 25, 2017
Genre: Post-Metal

Australia’s IMPETUOUS RITUAL follow up their last album “Unholy Congregation Of Hypocritical Ambivalence” and their debut “Relentless Execution Of Ceremonial Excrescence” LP with their new musical abomination of ambient death metal surrealism “Blight Upon Martyred Sentience” which takes their unhinged vortex-like death metal chaos into much more abstract, cavernous, and otherworldly realms.  

With a sound even less conventional and even more weirder and alien than its two predecessors, “Blight…” harnesses a much darker atmosphere (if one could even imagine that would be possible), sometimes veering off into abstract noise and dark ambient, creating a much more depraved, violent, torturous and malevolent audial canvas like no other band in extreme death metal today.  One could say that with the even stranger and warped sound picture that IMPETUOUS RITUAL have painted with “Blight…”, that the band have transcended and inverted the genre of death metal unto something of their own vision unparalleled. 

Tracklist:

1. Void Cohesion
2. Apoptosis
3. Inordinate Disdain
4. Untoward Evocation
5. Synchronous Convergence
6. Denigrative Prophecies
7. Sullen
8. Feculence Reveled
9. Intransience

Label: Profound Lore Records
Media type: CD Jewel Case
Release date: June 16, 2017
Genre: Death Metal

FUOCO FATUO was born in 2011, in the middle of the ghastly lakes of Varese, Italy.  Starting out as an occult and oppressive death/doom band with an eerie and gloomy atmosphere, their debut LP “The Viper Slithers In The Ashes Of What Remains”, which followed several EPs, was an exploration of the darkest and most desolate spaces through a sickened development of sound, making it like a flood of impenetrable black magma.

Their new album “Backwater” is a massive and suffocating funeral doom opus, the distressing awareness of the nothingness, transcending in the oblivion, and feeding on the black void.  The relationship between state of mind and nature, the desolation and vast sense of distance are the main themes.  An introspective, mournful journey, deeply rooted into the unknown.

Tracklist:

1. Sulphureous Hazes
2. Rainfall Of Debris
3. Perpetual Apochaos
4. Nemesis

Label: Profound Lore Records
Media type: CD 6-Panel Digipack
Release date: April 7, 2017
Genre: Death/Doom

Tracklist:

1. Day 
2. Broken Movements 
3. Suffering Tree 
4. Ribbon Of Shadow 
5. (Was It) The Cruelest Thing 
6. Night

Label: Profound Lore Records
Media type: CD 6-Panel Digipack
Release date: December 2, 2016
Genre: Doom/Death rock/Dark Ambient

Tracklist:

1. The Veil Of Control
2. Internal_Eternal
3. Black Memory
4. Selective Abstraction
5. Severed And Whole
6. When Whens End

Label: Profound Lore Records
Media type: CD 3-panel Digipack
Release date: September 23, 2016
Instrumental Progressive Metal