Flenser Records News

There's a tendency in metal to mistake aggression for honesty, volume for depth. To confuse the performance of darkness with its actual weight. Hidden Fires Burn Hottest, the new album from San Francisco-based post-black metal band Bosse-de-Nage, sidesteps this entirely. It’s the group’s most fully realized work yet, precisely because it refuses to be pinned down.

Bosse-de-Nage have been working with The Flenser for over fifteen years. They were one of the first bands the label ever partnered with and have the longest active relationship in the label's history. But unlike most bands who build momentum through constant touring and visibility, Bosse-de-Nage has largely existed apart from the music world's usual machinery. They've evolved on their own terms, in relative isolation, allowing the work to develop without outside pressure or influence. What began rooted in black metal anonymity has mutated into something that actively defies categorization. The aggression is still there, but it's no longer the point. Hidden Fires Burn Hottest finds the band treating emotions like physical objects, feelings with spatial properties. “No Such Place"" describes a space that can't exist but does anyway, somewhere between thought and location. ""Immortality Project"" examines infinite possibility not as promise but as problem, endless options collapsing under their own weight. These songs don't use metaphor to describe emotion. They make emotion into something you could theoretically touch.
Tracked by Jack Shirley (Deafheaven, Oathbreaker) at Atomic Garden East and mixed and mastered by Richard Chowenhill of Agriculture, Hidden Fires Burn Hottest was years in development, with some tracks beginning in 2018.

The long writing process offered time that most records don't get. Time to live with ideas, revise endlessly, to let structures settle. For the first time, lyricist Bryan Manning wrote everything in advance, creating a surplus to pull from rather than working under deadline pressure. The difference shows.
Coming off Further Still, an album built on constraint and economy, Bosse-de-Nage sought the opposite: sprawl, strangeness, fewer rules. Space for ideas to develop without rushing them. Dynamics that move through quiet as much as noise. Presence earned through atmosphere instead of volume. The record even includes ""Mementos,"" which might be considered the first love song the band has ever written.

Nothing here coheres into a theme. These are pieces pulled from low moments and private feelings made public through sound. The band has never been interested in positivity, in music that resolves cleanly or offers comfort. But bleakness doesn't mean humorlessness. There's something darkly funny running through much of it, even when it shouldn't be.
Hidden Fires Burn Hottest doesn't explain itself. It just insists: what you feel is as real as what you can see."

There's a tendency in metal to mistake aggression for honesty, volume for depth. To confuse the performance of darkness with its actual weight. Hidden Fires Burn Hottest, the new album from San Francisco-based post-black metal band Bosse-de-Nage, sidesteps this entirely. It’s the group’s most fully realized work yet, precisely because it refuses to be pinned down.

Bosse-de-Nage have been working with The Flenser for over fifteen years. They were one of the first bands the label ever partnered with and have the longest active relationship in the label's history. But unlike most bands who build momentum through constant touring and visibility, Bosse-de-Nage has largely existed apart from the music world's usual machinery. They've evolved on their own terms, in relative isolation, allowing the work to develop without outside pressure or influence. What began rooted in black metal anonymity has mutated into something that actively defies categorization. The aggression is still there, but it's no longer the point. Hidden Fires Burn Hottest finds the band treating emotions like physical objects, feelings with spatial properties. “No Such Place"" describes a space that can't exist but does anyway, somewhere between thought and location. ""Immortality Project"" examines infinite possibility not as promise but as problem, endless options collapsing under their own weight. These songs don't use metaphor to describe emotion. They make emotion into something you could theoretically touch.
Tracked by Jack Shirley (Deafheaven, Oathbreaker) at Atomic Garden East and mixed and mastered by Richard Chowenhill of Agriculture, Hidden Fires Burn Hottest was years in development, with some tracks beginning in 2018.

The long writing process offered time that most records don't get. Time to live with ideas, revise endlessly, to let structures settle. For the first time, lyricist Bryan Manning wrote everything in advance, creating a surplus to pull from rather than working under deadline pressure. The difference shows.
Coming off Further Still, an album built on constraint and economy, Bosse-de-Nage sought the opposite: sprawl, strangeness, fewer rules. Space for ideas to develop without rushing them. Dynamics that move through quiet as much as noise. Presence earned through atmosphere instead of volume. The record even includes ""Mementos,"" which might be considered the first love song the band has ever written.

Nothing here coheres into a theme. These are pieces pulled from low moments and private feelings made public through sound. The band has never been interested in positivity, in music that resolves cleanly or offers comfort. But bleakness doesn't mean humorlessness. There's something darkly funny running through much of it, even when it shouldn't be.
Hidden Fires Burn Hottest doesn't explain itself. It just insists: what you feel is as real as what you can see."

Los Angeles trio Faetooth sophomore album Labyrinthine is a deeply felt exploration of emotional weight: grief, memory, uncertainty, and the quiet work of growing around your own wounds. Following the band's 2022 debut Remnants of the Vessel, which introduced the band’s signature blend of heaviness and mysticism, Labyrinthine pushes further inward. True to its name, the album winds through a maze of feeling and form, where meaning is never handed over easily. It’s rooted in self-discovery through disorientation, the idea that understanding comes not from escape, but from getting lost. Ari May (guitars and vocals), Jenna Garcia (bass and vocals), and Rah Kanan (drums) manage to stay grounded in the immediate in parallel with fantasy themes of the band's namesake. Labyrinthine holds space for this contradiction; tenderness and intensity, restraint and release. The band's self-branded “fairy doom” sound fits between shoegaze, doom, and grunge. It isn’t just texture; it’s a framework for navigating the unsaid. Like the myth that inspired its title, Labyrinthine doesn’t end in victory, but in confrontation—not with escape, but with the Minotaur. Only here, the Minotaur isn’t a monster. It’s something quiet and more familiar: unresolved feelings, old memories, and sadness that refuse to stay buried. The album winds like a maze, sometimes heavy, sometimes hushed, always intentional. Faetooth isn’t chasing catharsis. They’re creating space to reflect, to feel, and maybe to get a little lost along the way.
Artist quote: "White Noise" emerged from a diary entry, and is a relentless and intense reflection on inner turmoil. We’re often drawn to the familiar, even when we don’t realize we’re reaching out for it. It is an emotional upheaval, carrying harsh truths that weigh heavily on the heart. Guitarist, Ari May mentions, “Performing the song always takes me back to a specific place, even if just for a moment.”
“Riffs and melodies brimming with loneliness and longing… this band’s incantations affect my mood the whole day after listening.” — The Sleeping Shaman
“Bringing otherworldly hazy doom goodness… dreamy clean vocals, echoing harsh vocals, entrancing riffs, meditative shoegaze melodies.” — Nine Circles
“Slow, lumbering behemoths of great weight… couched in a melancholy atmosphere and explosions of crushing heaviness.” - Where Strides The Behemoth

Los Angeles trio Faetooth sophomore album Labyrinthine is a deeply felt exploration of emotional weight: grief, memory, uncertainty, and the quiet work of growing around your own wounds. Following the band's 2022 debut Remnants of the Vessel, which introduced the band’s signature blend of heaviness and mysticism, Labyrinthine pushes further inward. True to its name, the album winds through a maze of feeling and form, where meaning is never handed over easily. It’s rooted in self-discovery through disorientation, the idea that understanding comes not from escape, but from getting lost. Ari May (guitars and vocals), Jenna Garcia (bass and vocals), and Rah Kanan (drums) manage to stay grounded in the immediate in parallel with fantasy themes of the band's namesake. Labyrinthine holds space for this contradiction; tenderness and intensity, restraint and release. The band's self-branded “fairy doom” sound fits between shoegaze, doom, and grunge. It isn’t just texture; it’s a framework for navigating the unsaid. Like the myth that inspired its title, Labyrinthine doesn’t end in victory, but in confrontation—not with escape, but with the Minotaur. Only here, the Minotaur isn’t a monster. It’s something quiet and more familiar: unresolved feelings, old memories, and sadness that refuse to stay buried. The album winds like a maze, sometimes heavy, sometimes hushed, always intentional. Faetooth isn’t chasing catharsis. They’re creating space to reflect, to feel, and maybe to get a little lost along the way.
Artist quote: "White Noise" emerged from a diary entry, and is a relentless and intense reflection on inner turmoil. We’re often drawn to the familiar, even when we don’t realize we’re reaching out for it. It is an emotional upheaval, carrying harsh truths that weigh heavily on the heart. Guitarist, Ari May mentions, “Performing the song always takes me back to a specific place, even if just for a moment.”
“Riffs and melodies brimming with loneliness and longing… this band’s incantations affect my mood the whole day after listening.” — The Sleeping Shaman
“Bringing otherworldly hazy doom goodness… dreamy clean vocals, echoing harsh vocals, entrancing riffs, meditative shoegaze melodies.” — Nine Circles
“Slow, lumbering behemoths of great weight… couched in a melancholy atmosphere and explosions of crushing heaviness.” - Where Strides The Behemoth

Planning For Burial is the solo project of Thom Wasluck, emerging from Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. It’s Closeness, It’s Easy is the long-awaited follow-up to 2017’s Below The House. If Below The House was about returning home, following in the footsteps of one’s father and joining a union, and leaving behind youth’s wild days, It’s Closeness, It’s Easy embraces what comes next—the weight of all years, the quiet shifts, the reckoning with what remains. This record is many things. It captures the slow drift of time, the unnoticed shifts in a loved one—the creeping changes in mental health, the quiet pull of addiction, the kind of grief that settles in the bones rather than announces itself.
At its core, It’s Closeness, It’s Easy is about stepping into middle age and taking stock. It confronts the reality of living with the hand that’s been dealt and searching for meaning in what remains. It speaks to loss—the crushing weight of saying goodbye to a beloved 17-year old cat, the slow-motion grief of watching friends self-destruct, the inescapable passage of time as it bears down on aging parents and the self. But it also reflects the warmth of reconnection, the kind of love that never burns out but instead deepens. The feeling of picking up where things left off, untouched by the years in between.

While written over the course of two years, the recording process reflects a sense of immediacy. Rather than assembling songs piece by piece over time, the album took shape in singular, immersive sessions—less an act of construction, more an unveiling of something already waiting to take shape.
Rooted in a staunch DIY ethos, Wasluck handles every aspect of Planning For Burial project himself—recording the music, designing the artwork, and performing live as a one-man band. He books his own tours, ever and independent creative. This hands-on approach has led Planning For Burial to play hundreds of shows solidifying his place in the underground music scene. A defining moment came in 2018 when he performed at the Meltdown Festival in London, curated by Robert Smith of The Cure.

In the spring of 2019, a new rock band consisting of four otherwise ordinary Okies would arise out of seemingly nowhere, swiftly turning heads with a grotesque new take on noise rock fuelled by the existential anguish that has defined the 21st Century. Taking its name from the towering mounds of toxic waste that stand as monuments to capitalism’s cruel hubris across its home state, Oklahoma City’s Chat Pile made an immediate impression, soon culminating in the release of its landmark 2022 debut album, God’s Country and 2024’s expansive follow up Cool World
While the massive success of God’s Country would propel the quartet from the status of underground favorites to an international sensation, Chat Pile’s mission to take rock music to new zeniths of intensity was part of the plan from the very start. In fact, during its first handful of months as an active project, Chat Pile began writing and recording some of the heaviest, hellish, and harrowing music of its entire catalogue, laying the foundation of the themes and traits that would eventually manifest in the band’s debut LP. The result of these sessions would be a pair of EPs, This Dungeon Earth and Remove Your Skin Please, released in the summer and winter of 2019, respectively.
Initially put out by Reptilian Records in 2020, The Flenser is proud to present a special reissue of Chat Pile’s pivotal first two EPs, each compiled onto a single disc. This dual EP compilation chronicles the earliest moments of the Oklahoma City quartet’s discography, a snapshot of the band’s pre-Flenser days and of the eight tracks of noxious, nihilistic noise rock that would propel the Midwest band to a globe-spanning, underground heavyweights.

In the spring of 2019, a new rock band consisting of four otherwise ordinary Okies would arise out of seemingly nowhere, swiftly turning heads with a grotesque new take on noise rock fuelled by the existential anguish that has defined the 21st Century. Taking its name from the towering mounds of toxic waste that stand as monuments to capitalism’s cruel hubris across its home state, Oklahoma City’s Chat Pile made an immediate impression, soon culminating in the release of its landmark 2022 debut album, God’s Country and 2024’s expansive follow up Cool World
While the massive success of God’s Country would propel the quartet from the status of underground favorites to an international sensation, Chat Pile’s mission to take rock music to new zeniths of intensity was part of the plan from the very start. In fact, during its first handful of months as an active project, Chat Pile began writing and recording some of the heaviest, hellish, and harrowing music of its entire catalogue, laying the foundation of the themes and traits that would eventually manifest in the band’s debut LP. The result of these sessions would be a pair of EPs, This Dungeon Earth and Remove Your Skin Please, released in the summer and winter of 2019, respectively.
Initially put out by Reptilian Records in 2020, The Flenser is proud to present a special reissue of Chat Pile’s pivotal first two EPs, each compiled onto a single disc. This dual EP compilation chronicles the earliest moments of the Oklahoma City quartet’s discography, a snapshot of the band’s pre-Flenser days and of the eight tracks of noxious, nihilistic noise rock that would propel the Midwest band to a globe-spanning, underground heavyweights.

In the spring of 2019, a new rock band consisting of four otherwise ordinary Okies would arise out of seemingly nowhere, swiftly turning heads with a grotesque new take on noise rock fuelled by the existential anguish that has defined the 21st Century. Taking its name from the towering mounds of toxic waste that stand as monuments to capitalism’s cruel hubris across its home state, Oklahoma City’s Chat Pile made an immediate impression, soon culminating in the release of its landmark 2022 debut album, God’s Country and 2024’s expansive follow up Cool World
While the massive success of God’s Country would propel the quartet from the status of underground favorites to an international sensation, Chat Pile’s mission to take rock music to new zeniths of intensity was part of the plan from the very start. In fact, during its first handful of months as an active project, Chat Pile began writing and recording some of the heaviest, hellish, and harrowing music of its entire catalogue, laying the foundation of the themes and traits that would eventually manifest in the band’s debut LP. The result of these sessions would be a pair of EPs, This Dungeon Earth and Remove Your Skin Please, released in the summer and winter of 2019, respectively.
Initially put out by Reptilian Records in 2020, The Flenser is proud to present a special reissue of Chat Pile’s pivotal first two EPs, each compiled onto a single disc. This dual EP compilation chronicles the earliest moments of the Oklahoma City quartet’s discography, a snapshot of the band’s pre-Flenser days and of the eight tracks of noxious, nihilistic noise rock that would propel the Midwest band to a globe-spanning, underground heavyweights.

Planning For Burial is the solo project of Thom Wasluck, emerging from Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. It’s Closeness, It’s Easy is the long-awaited follow-up to 2017’s Below The House. If Below The House was about returning home, following in the footsteps of one’s father and joining a union, and leaving behind youth’s wild days, It’s Closeness, It’s Easy embraces what comes next—the weight of all years, the quiet shifts, the reckoning with what remains. This record is many things. It captures the slow drift of time, the unnoticed shifts in a loved one—the creeping changes in mental health, the quiet pull of addiction, the kind of grief that settles in the bones rather than announces itself.
At its core, It’s Closeness, It’s Easy is about stepping into middle age and taking stock. It confronts the reality of living with the hand that’s been dealt and searching for meaning in what remains. It speaks to loss—the crushing weight of saying goodbye to a beloved 17-year old cat, the slow-motion grief of watching friends self-destruct, the inescapable passage of time as it bears down on aging parents and the self. But it also reflects the warmth of reconnection, the kind of love that never burns out but instead deepens. The feeling of picking up where things left off, untouched by the years in between.

While written over the course of two years, the recording process reflects a sense of immediacy. Rather than assembling songs piece by piece over time, the album took shape in singular, immersive sessions—less an act of construction, more an unveiling of something already waiting to take shape.
Rooted in a staunch DIY ethos, Wasluck handles every aspect of Planning For Burial project himself—recording the music, designing the artwork, and performing live as a one-man band. He books his own tours, ever and independent creative. This hands-on approach has led Planning For Burial to play hundreds of shows solidifying his place in the underground music scene. A defining moment came in 2018 when he performed at the Meltdown Festival in London, curated by Robert Smith of The Cure.

Received an 8.4 Best New Music rating from Pitchfork. Low-fi slowcore and ambient from the San Francisco Bay Area. For fans of Grouper, Midwife, The Flenser. The music of San Jose-based artist Kathryn Mohr exists

Received an 8.4 Best New Music rating from Pitchfork. Low-fi slowcore and ambient from the San Francisco Bay Area. For fans of Grouper, Midwife, The Flenser. The music of San Jose-based artist Kathryn Mohr exists

In summer of 2015 Seattle's doom fixtures Bell Witch released Four Phantoms' on Profound Lore Records, the highly anticipated doomed follow up to the band's now classic debut full-length Longing' (2012). But Longing' was not the band's first effort. Bell Witch first appeared in 2011 with a well-received demo that was simply titled Demo 2011.' At 37 minutes this recording was a massive statement of purpose which far-eclipsed the "demo" status implied by the name. It was recorded by Brandon Fitzsimons (Wormwood), the same engineer that worked on the band's debut Longing.' Demo 2011 showcased Bell Witch's minimalist depressing sound that has proven to be timeless, relevant, and undeniably sad. The band is heavy. The Flenser is proud to unleash this new pressing of a classic moment in contemporary US doom history. Artwork by the band's own Adrian Guerra (RIP) presented with an updated layout and in a more sustainable package than the initial pressing.

In summer of 2015 Seattle's doom fixtures Bell Witch released Four Phantoms' on Profound Lore Records, the highly anticipated doomed follow up to the band's now classic debut full-length Longing' (2012). But Longing' was not the band's first effort. Bell Witch first appeared in 2011 with a well-received demo that was simply titled Demo 2011.' At 37 minutes this recording was a massive statement of purpose which far-eclipsed the "demo" status implied by the name. It was recorded by Brandon Fitzsimons (Wormwood), the same engineer that worked on the band's debut Longing.' Demo 2011 showcased Bell Witch's minimalist depressing sound that has proven to be timeless, relevant, and undeniably sad. The band is heavy. The Flenser is proud to unleash this new pressing of a classic moment in contemporary US doom history. Artwork by the band's own Adrian Guerra (RIP) presented with an updated layout and in a more sustainable package than the initial pressing.

Upon its release in 2017, Bell Witch's Mirror Reaper cemented the Seattle duo's status as one of doom metal's most formidable acts. Its single, monolithic track also served as a tribute to the band's former drummer Adrian Guerra, who tragically passed away the year before.

Five years earlier, on the back of a highly praised demo, the band released their debut album, Longing. Featuring the original line-up of Dylan Desmond and Adrian Guerra (RIP), the album was recorded by Brandon Fitzsimons (Wormwood, Samothrace). It is a time-stretching journey through darkness, pain, and suffering, and doomed minimalism that is now considered a classic of the genre.

Originally released on CD by Profound Lore in 2012 and on vinyl by The Flenser, the vinyl edition has been out of print for several years until now. The Flenser offers a new pressing of this timeless masterpiece. Longing is packaged in a thick, old-style case-wrapped gatefold jacket with printed inner sleeves.

Upon its release in 2017, Bell Witch's Mirror Reaper cemented the Seattle duo's status as one of doom metal's most formidable acts. Its single, monolithic track also served as a tribute to the band's former drummer Adrian Guerra, who tragically passed away the year before.

Five years earlier, on the back of a highly praised demo, the band released their debut album, Longing. Featuring the original line-up of Dylan Desmond and Adrian Guerra (RIP), the album was recorded by Brandon Fitzsimons (Wormwood, Samothrace). It is a time-stretching journey through darkness, pain, and suffering, and doomed minimalism that is now considered a classic of the genre.

Originally released on CD by Profound Lore in 2012 and on vinyl by The Flenser, the vinyl edition has been out of print for several years until now. The Flenser offers a new pressing of this timeless masterpiece. Longing is packaged in a thick, old-style case-wrapped gatefold jacket with printed inner sleeves.

Direct follow up to OKC noise rock band’s 2022’s breakthrough album God’s Country. Mixed by Benjamin Green (Uniform, Portrayal of Guilt, Drab Majesty). Mastered by Matt Coloton (The Rolling Stones, Blur, Nick Cave, Sunn O)). Full US tour in 2024, EU early 2025, with more dates to come. Like the towering mounds of toxic waste from which it gets its namesake, the music of Oklahoma City noise rock quartet Chat Pile is a suffocating, grotesque embodiment of the existential anguish that has defined the 21st Century. It figures that a band with this abrasive, unrelenting, and outlandish of a sound has stuck as strong of a chord as it has. Dread has replaced the American dream, and Chat Pile’s music is a poignant reminder of that shift—a portrait of an American rock band molded by a society defined by its cold and cruel power systems. Though very much on-brand with Chat Pile’s signature flavor of cacophonous, sludgy noise rock, the band’s shift to a global thematic focus on Cool World not only compliments the broader experimentations it employs with their songwriting but also how they dissect the album’s core theme of violence. Melded into the band’s twisted foundational sound are traces of other eclectic genre stylings, with examples of gazy, goth-tinged dirges to abrasive yet anthemic alt/indie-esque hooks and off-kilter metal grooves only scratching the surface of what can be heard in the album’s ten tracks. Besides stylistically stretching the boundaries of the Chat Pile sound, Cool World is also the band’s first record to have someone else handle mixing duties, with Ben Greenberg (Uniform) capturing and further amplifying the quartet’s unmistakably outsider and folk-art edge. While Chat Pile’s debut album was plenty disturbing with its B-movie-inspired interpretation of a “real American horror story”, what the band depicts on Cool World is unsettling not just from its visceral noise rock onslaught, but from depicting how all sorts of atrocities are pretty much standard parts of modern existence. In film terms, think something like a Criterion arthouse film by way of schlocky grindhouse splatterfest: undeniably gratuitous and thrilling in the moment but leaving a looming dread in the back of one’s mind for how close the horrors depicted mirror reality.

Highly polished, cinematic “hypernoise” melded with industrial metal /rock. Follow up to 2019’s industrial noise classic, The Origin Of My Depression. Uboa’s fifth album Impossible Light almost never made it out of the dark. From its initial conception in 2018, this record went to hell and back, dragging its immensity and too-big-to-hold emotion through the torturous process of translation to sound and returned triumphantly as a full-bodied record in a distinct new style. Impossible Light begins where Uboa’s 2019 breakout album The Origin Of My Depression left off—and ends somewhere entirely different. The Origin stunned with its methodical use of doom, harsh noise, and ambient soundscapes while documenting a raw, unhindered account of Xandra Metcalfe’s experiences with her transition and her struggles with mental health. Over time The Origin steadily grew a cult-like following which developed into a full-fledged internet community focused around noise, neurodiversity and transness. While Uboa’s signature style of highly polished, cinematic “hypernoise” is front and center in Impossible Light, there is also a daring departure into the genres of industrial metal / rock, setting it apart from any other Uboa release thus far and distinguishing it from other contemporary noise records. Metcalfe kept the lyrical content of this record as a time capsule of the catastrophic ups and downs and rapidly changing environments within herself and in the world from 2018-2023. Key collaborators include Blood Of A Pomegranate, Otay:onii, Charlie Looker and Haela Hunt-Hendrix of Liturgy. Impossible Light dives fearlessly into queer sexuality, trans embodiment, grief for those who couldn’t make it, solidarity for those facing unimaginable discrimination, the toxic spread of transphobic hatred and misinformation, and the ultimate hope of recovery from trauma and mental anguish. This is a record about the light at the end of the tunnel and the power it takes to keep moving towards it

“If rock ’n’ roll’s a dream, please don’t wake me.” Midwife’s No Depression In Heaven, her fourth studio album, was written primarily in the back of vans while on tour endlessly over the course of the past few years. The record engages with the contemplative spirit of rock ’n’ roll from within a body in motion. No Depression In Heaven explores themes of sentimentality, the interplay between dreams, memory, and fantasy, and a familiar subject seen throughout all of Midwife’s work: grief. Madeline Johnston takes a look at the tender and transcendent underneath a hard exterior of leather and studs, exposing a different side of the heavy music scene, where Johnston’s project has been living and evolving. Recording at home in New Mexico between 2021 and 2023, Johnston aimed to create something that was rough around the edges, returning to a free recording process that was less focused on perfection and more attuned to expressing the spirit that lives inside of the songs. The album features collaborations with Chris Adolf and Michael Stein of American Culture, Ben Schurr and Tim Jordan of Nyxy Nyx, Angel Diaz of Vyva Melinkolya, and Allison Lorenzen. Inspired by ephemeral moments that make up life on tour, the totemization of vehicles, outlaws, and the psyche of America’s underbelly, No Depression In Heaven affirms Johnston’s existential status as a woman of the highway

Emerald vinyl LP is for Indies only. Cassette is also for indies only. San Francisco Bay Area-based metal desconstructionists’ latest is both inspired by the loss of a bandmate and the legacy of Oakland A’s legend Vida Blue. Time is a slippery fish. Loss has inspired Mamaleek’s latest full-length album, titled Vida Blue. This marks the San Francisco Bay Area metal deconstructionists’ eighth album and their third as a full lineup. Tragedy struck in March of 2023 when the band lost a longtime friend and member, keyboardist Eric Livingston, leaving the group, which began as a duo of two brothers and later expanded to a five-piece, now with only four members. Despite this profound loss, Mamaleek persevered, performing as a quartet at various festivals, including the 2023 edition of Tilburg. The band returned to the studio to create new material that appropriately reflects their journey through loss and honors their fallen comrade. The resulting album draws inspiration from the legacy of Oakland A’s baseball legend Vida Blue, whose former team coincidentally announced its relocation to Las Vegas that same year. The band members themselves describe this poignant chapter in their own words: “Time is a slippery fish. Maybe only someone like Vida could grasp it. Although he’s left time behind, his image and that lefty heat remain in the memories of many. Eventually they’ll be forgotten, and hopefully replaced with even more exultant ones. This musical recording is a reflection on loss and its acceptance. We explore several examples for each song, including the loss of pride, of money, of glory, of country, of sanity, of a favorite sports team, of significant others, and, every day, one’s self. It also explores various associated moods fear, panic, reverence, stoicism, and steadfastness—to arrive at a resolution: Loss is only a test, the glue that holds and erodes each memory, the connection that binds and loosens us all, pitch by pitch, inning by inning. This is your celebration.” Vida Blue is a person, moment, and memory, together the crystallization of apocalypse: “unveiling,” “disclosure.”

Experimental black metal from Brooklyn featuring members of Pyrrhon, Krallice, Sigur Rós, The Glen Branca Ensemble, Steve Reich. Recorded by Colin Marston (Dysrhythmia, Krallice, Liturgy). Follow-up to the bands well received 2022 debut Aveilut. The Promise Of Rain, the sophomore album of the experimental black metal band Scarcity, is an embodiment of the hard-to-believe truth that burdens are easier to bear when distributed, a realization Brendon Randall-Myers (conductor of the Glenn Branca Ensemble) grappled with extensively while writing this record. This is a sweat-drenched album about dispersion, about spreading, about the collective relieving of burdens through shared experience: one doesn’t have to go through everything alone. When Scarcity’s debut album Aveilut was written in early 2020, Randall-Myers and vocalist Doug Moore (Pyrrhon, Weeping Sores, Glorious Depravity, and Seputus) never expected to be able to play their songs live. The cathartic experience of playing something that came from a place of isolation out to people in a live setting is the root of the intensity in The Promise Of Rain. The Promise Of Rain begins where the craziest climaxes of Aveilut end, and is the first Scarcity record to include Tristan Kasten-Krause (Sigur Ros, Steve Reich, LEYA) on bass, Dylan Dilella (Pyrrhon) on guitar and Lev Weinstein (Krallice) on drums. Rather than building density with the quasi-orchestral layering on Aveilut, Scarcity challenged themselves to document what five people in a room could do, recording most of The Promise Of Rain in one or two takes, capturing the physical effort and urgency of a live performance. Scarcity forges a completely fresh sound in The Promise Of Rain with their alarming guitar work and melodic arpeggiating, shedding dead skin and breaking ground with sheer vulnerability. The lyrics for The Promise Of Rain were inspired by a trip Moore took to the high deserts of southern Utah in 2023. “To thrive in the desert is an act of abnegation—” he observes, “you do right by the land and receive its gifts, or it does away with you.” The necessity of adaptation is as evident in the desert as it is to the landscape of the human experience. The transformation of ideas and beliefs, the grief of losing relationships that had to end, and the fear involved in forming new ones under the grip of mental illness is conjured over and over again on this panoramic album.

The Flenser is pleased to announce the release of Living Is Easy, the latest EP from ecstatic black metal band Agriculture. Ecstatic black metal from Los Angeles. Follows up 2023's critically acclaimed debut. A new EP plus first vinyl release of their first EP. Appearing prominently at the 2024 edition of Roadburn. US and European tour dates in the works through 2024. Video for title track featuring Flenser goons, Chat Pile. This new EP will be paired with the band's debut EP, The Circle Chant. For the first time, both EPs will be pressed together on a single 12-inch vinyl record as well as a cassette format Living Is Easy represents a significant new statement from the band. With their debut self-titled, Agriculture embarked on a journey to explore how heavy music can provide insights into the joys of life, both everyday and divine. Their extensive touring with this material led to a profound experience of ecstasy, surpassing expectations as they shared the intensity and joy of these songs with audiences worldwide. This experience was a catalyst for the band, inspiring them to delve even deeper into the realm of "ecstatic black metal" music. They believes that with this release they have pushed this concept to its limit, resulting in a transformative explosion of sound and meaning. The record delves into themes of community connection, holiness, violence, and the cycles of life. The title track is especially notable, featuring a retelling of a story from one of the Buddha's past lives. In this narrative, the Buddha encounters a starving family of tigers and sacrifices himself to save them, a tale of serenity and selflessness. This story resonates deeply with the band, reflecting the humility and inspiration they find in their collaboration and echoing the generosity and interconnection they strive to explore through their music. Touring holds a special place in the heart of Agriculture. It brings them immense joy to share their music, visit new places, and meet new people in cities around the world. This constant interaction with diverse audiences serves as a continuous source of inspiration for this work. Agriculture is eager and excited to share Living Is Easy as well as give new life to the first vinyl pressing of The Circle Chant. Black Vinyl!

Repressed mint coloured vinyl for the 10th anniversary of the first Flenser pressing! Double Vinyl-LP including digital download code & comes with a 75-page zine. Layout by Niels Geybels (Agalloch, Planning for Burial), note new price on the mint edition. Long requested CD version back in print, note new price. For fans of Enemies List Home Recordings, Giles Corey, Black Wing, Planning For Burial. In 2008, Have A Nice Life released their now cult classic Deathconsciousness album to a whimper and critical non-interest. Six years after its release the band followed up with 2014's stunner The Unnatural World, and by then Deathconsciousness had become a force of influence and fanatic obsession. Seamlessly blending shoegaze, post punk, new wave, industrial and noise with unparalleled depth and weight, the album was originally released by Enemies List Home Recordings founded by HANL members Dan Barrett and Tim Macuga. The 75-page booklet accompanying the deluxe format of Deathconsciousness details the dark and forgotten history of the Antiochean cult. Blurring the lines between novella, liner notes, and academic text, the zine itself presents an engrossing narrative. The corresponding album is rhythmic, primal and expansive, and is a gloomy-post-punk masterpiece a mediation on death, loss and existence. It feels more fresh and engaging with every listen and has held up as a remarkable piece of art. Fans of Have A Nice Life exhibit both cultic thought and action for good reason it is perhaps a fanbase as dark and mysterious as the Antiochean's, which the album itself revolves around. Quotes : "Deathconsciousness is probably a perfect record" - Last Train To Cool // "A masterpiece of depression" - The Quietus // "85-minute powerhouse of a double-album" - The Needle Drop // "Have a Nice Life's Deathconsciousness could quite possibly move the Earth" - Sputnik Music (5/5 rating)".

The Flenser is pleased to announce the release of Living Is Easy, the latest EP from ecstatic black metal band Agriculture. Ecstatic black metal from Los Angeles. Follows up 2023's critically acclaimed debut. A new EP plus first vinyl release of their first EP. Appearing prominently at the 2024 edition of Roadburn. US and European tour dates in the works through 2024. Video for title track featuring Flenser goons, Chat Pile. This new EP will be paired with the band's debut EP, The Circle Chant. For the first time, both EPs will be pressed together on a single 12-inch vinyl record as well as a cassette format Living Is Easy represents a significant new statement from the band. With their debut self-titled, Agriculture embarked on a journey to explore how heavy music can provide insights into the joys of life, both everyday and divine. Their extensive touring with this material led to a profound experience of ecstasy, surpassing expectations as they shared the intensity and joy of these songs with audiences worldwide. This experience was a catalyst for the band, inspiring them to delve even deeper into the realm of "ecstatic black metal" music. They believes that with this release they have pushed this concept to its limit, resulting in a transformative explosion of sound and meaning. The record delves into themes of community connection, holiness, violence, and the cycles of life. The title track is especially notable, featuring a retelling of a story from one of the Buddha's past lives. In this narrative, the Buddha encounters a starving family of tigers and sacrifices himself to save them, a tale of serenity and selflessness. This story resonates deeply with the band, reflecting the humility and inspiration they find in their collaboration and echoing the generosity and interconnection they strive to explore through their music. Touring holds a special place in the heart of Agriculture. It brings them immense joy to share their music, visit new places, and meet new people in cities around the world. This constant interaction with diverse audiences serves as a continuous source of inspiration for this work. Agriculture is eager and excited to share Living Is Easy as well as give new life to the first vinyl pressing of The Circle Chant. Black Vinyl!

For fans of Duster, LSD and The Search for God, The Microphones. Double LP (NO BOOKS!) First official physical copy of fan-made compilation of alternate tracks and demos from cult phenomenon album Deathconsciousness. Freshly remastered. With the broader adoption of the internet around the turn of the century, how people would engage with and discover underground music would change forever. As a result of the new digital era, DIY was now worldwide, and no band embraced this new frontier better than Have A Nice Life. Formed in 2000 by duo Dan Barrett and Tim Macuga, the Middletown, CT-based pair would, throughout the 00s, self-release and share a number of demos and home recordings via early social media channels as well as establish its in-house label ENEMIES LIST HOME RECORDINGS. These first steps set in motion Have A Nice Life’s rise to renown as an icon of underground music in the internet age, culminating with the release of its pivotal 2008 debut album, Deathconsciousness. Through word of mouth and online discussion, Deathconsciousness became subject to viral praise thanks to its synthesis of bleak post-punk, lo-fi shoegaze, and carpets of hypnotic drone music. Eventually, this humble self-released project would attain the status of a post-internet cult classic, amassing Have A Nice Life a fervent online following that the band would interact with in kind. In an effort to thank and continue to engage with Have A Nice Life’s internet cult following, Barrett and Macuga would regularly share links to old demos, works in progress, and outtakes from the recording of Deathconsciousness. Over time, a group of fans would compile these demos into an unofficial release. Dubbed Voids, this fan-made compilation several alternate takes of tracks from Deathconsciousness, as well as a handful of early versions of songs that would appear on Have A Nice Life’s two following albums, The Unnatural World and Sea of Worry. While undeniably reminiscent of their final album version counterparts, the earlier versions of these tracks each feel distinct in a way that makes the moody, decidedly lo-fi aura of Voids an essential slice of the Have A Nice Life discography. Hungry for more from the enigmatic duo, fans swarmed around this compilation, accompanied by loud calls for it to receive a physical release. Seeing that demand and with the band’s blessing, a pair of fan-made tape pressings of Voids would be released via Music Ruins Lives, a DIY label run by Have A Nice Life superfan Thom Wasluck, also known for his band Planning for Burial. Between both instances of the tape swiftly selling out and the compilation’s long absence from streaming services, Voids has historically been an elusive release to track down, only available in the obscurest corners of the internet or physically on the secondary market at eye-wateringly high prices.
Over a decade since its initial, unofficial release in 2011, The Flenser is proud to reissue Have A Nice Life’s Voids for the first time ever in an official capacity in physical form. Originally released digitally in early 2023 and freshly remastered for the occasion, this reissue of the beloved compilation will receive its first-ever wide release on physical formats (CD/LP/Cassette). This release also marks the first time fan-favorite tracks from Voids “Sisyphus”, “I’m Doctor House”, and “Human Error” will be available on vinyl and CD. Like a symbolic passing of the torch, the physical versions of the 2023 Voids reissue come with a foreword essay written by Wasluck, the previous custodian of Voids during the Music Ruins Lives days.

The Flenser is pleased to announce the release of Living Is Easy, the latest EP from ecstatic black metal band Agriculture. Ecstatic black metal from Los Angeles. Follows up 2023’s critically acclaimed debut. A new EP plus first vinyl release of their first EP. Appearing prominently at the 2024 edition of Roadburn. US and European tour dates in the works through 2024. Video for title track featuring Flenser goons, Chat Pile. This new EP will be paired with the band’s debut EP, The Circle Chant. For the first time, both EPs will be pressed together on a single 12-inch vinyl record as well as a cassette format Living Is Easy represents a significant new statement from the band. With their debut self-titled, Agriculture embarked on a journey to explore how heavy music can provide insights into the joys of life, both everyday and divine. Their extensive touring with this material led to a profound experience of ecstasy, surpassing expectations as they shared the intensity and joy of these songs with audiences worldwide. This experience was a catalyst for the band, inspiring them to delve even deeper into the realm of “ecstatic black metal” music. They believes that with this release they have pushed this concept to its limit, resulting in a transformative explosion of sound and meaning. The record delves into themes of community connection, holiness, violence, and the cycles of life. The title track is especially notable, featuring a retelling of a story from one of the Buddha’s past lives. In this narrative, the Buddha encounters a starving family of tigers and sacrifices himself to save them, a tale of serenity and selflessness. This story resonates deeply with the band, reflecting the humility and inspiration they find in their collaboration and echoing the generosity and interconnection they strive to explore through their music. Touring holds a special place in the heart of Agriculture. It brings them immense joy to share their music, visit new places, and meet new people in cities around the world. This constant interaction with diverse audiences serves as a continuous source of inspiration for this work. Agriculture is eager and excited to share Living Is Easy as well as give new life to the first vinyl pressing of The Circle Chant

For fans of Mt. Eerie and Wolves In The Throne Room. Experimental, highly idiosyncratic take on black metal from Oakland California / Olympia Washington two piece. Recorded, mixed and mastered by Nicholas Wilbur (The Microphones, Have A Nice Life, Planning For Burial). Previous releases with on cult DIY label An Out Recordings. 2018 split release with Thou. Ragana is a duo whose members alternate duties on drums, guitar, and vocals to produce some of the most unique and affecting dark music in metal today. The two-piece came together in 2011 in the DIY punk scene of Olympia, WA and are now based in Olympia and Oakland, CA. In their time together so far, Ragana have self-released five albums and teamed up with genre-favourite Thou for a split release in 2018. The following year, Ragana released their heralded We Know That The Heavens Are Empty EP and have quietly been working on new music ever since. The band signed with The Flenser in late 2022 and now present their forthcoming debut album for the label, Desolation's Flower. On Desolation's Flower, Ragana draws upon a number of influences from the flora and fauna of their Pacific Northwest origins to the darkly nostalgic folk of Mt. Eerie and, yes, their Olympian forebears Wolves In The Throne Room, synthesising them into an experimental, highly idiosyncratic take on black metal. Held together by an intense focus on raw emotion and haunting atmospherics, Ragana shifts seamlessly from tender, mesmerising vocal harmonies to piercing, heart-ripping screams and back again, yielding music that is heavy, beautiful and punishing all at once. Written over the past few tumultuous years, Desolation's Flower is the band's most devastating effort to date, containing seven incantations of loss, rage, pain and hope. Expertly engineered by the masterful Nicholas Wilbur at the Unknown Studio in Anacortes, Washington (Planning For Burial, drowse, Divide and Dissolve, Have a Nice Life), the album serves as the culmination of the past decade plus of the band's ethos and execution.

For fans of Mt. Eerie and Wolves In The Throne Room. Experimental, highly idiosyncratic take on black metal from Oakland California / Olympia Washington two piece. Recorded, mixed and mastered by Nicholas Wilbur (The Microphones, Have A Nice Life, Planning For Burial). Previous releases with on cult DIY label An Out Recordings. 2018 split release with Thou. Ragana is a duo whose members alternate duties on drums, guitar, and vocals to produce some of the most unique and affecting dark music in metal today. The two-piece came together in 2011 in the DIY punk scene of Olympia, WA and are now based in Olympia and Oakland, CA. In their time together so far, Ragana have self-released five albums and teamed up with genre-favourite Thou for a split release in 2018. The following year, Ragana released their heralded We Know That The Heavens Are Empty EP and have quietly been working on new music ever since. The band signed with The Flenser in late 2022 and now present their forthcoming debut album for the label, Desolation's Flower. On Desolation's Flower, Ragana draws upon a number of influences from the flora and fauna of their Pacific Northwest origins to the darkly nostalgic folk of Mt. Eerie and, yes, their Olympian forebears Wolves In The Throne Room, synthesising them into an experimental, highly idiosyncratic take on black metal. Held together by an intense focus on raw emotion and haunting atmospherics, Ragana shifts seamlessly from tender, mesmerising vocal harmonies to piercing, heart-ripping screams and back again, yielding music that is heavy, beautiful and punishing all at once. Written over the past few tumultuous years, Desolation's Flower is the band's most devastating effort to date, containing seven incantations of loss, rage, pain and hope. Expertly engineered by the masterful Nicholas Wilbur at the Unknown Studio in Anacortes, Washington (Planning For Burial, drowse, Divide and Dissolve, Have a Nice Life), the album serves as the culmination of the past decade plus of the band's ethos and execution.

Experimental rock quintet from Los Angeles for fans of Unwound, Duster, Slint, and Lowercase. Mixed and engineered by Tim Green at Louder Studios (Unwound, Melvins, Jawbreaker). Live appearances with Flenser labelmates, Have a Nice Life, Chat Pile, Midwife, and tour dates planned throughout 2023. Since its formation in 2018 by like-minded Calarts students Alex Kent (guitar, vocals), April Gerloff (bass), and Sylvie Simmons (guitar), as well as the recent addition of Clint Dodson (percussionist), Los Angeles-based quartet Sprain has honed its signature flavor of experimentalism to a razor-fine point. Gradually moving from twisting conventions in its early works of minimalist slowcore to now transcending the confines of genre altogether, Sprain's evolution over the past several years has encouraged the band to embrace a sound true to its muse. With its latest record, The Lamb As Effigy or Three Hundred And Fifty XOXOXOS For A Spark Union With My Darling Divine, the band has translated this intent into an ambitious work that pairs its resplendent scale with uncompromising honesty towards the band's artistic and conceptual essences. The most extraordinary of art isn't created without its fair share of trials, of which Sprain faced numerous during the recording process of The Lamb As Effigy, with the sum and circumstances of them nearly sealing the album's fate in limbo. With obstacles including session reschedulings as a result of a line-up change and a major studio electrical failure at the last possible moment, a mixing process that demanded the organization of several years of material across four separate studios, and the recording of the actual songs pushing the members of Sprain to their own physical limits, there were several times where the band considered scrapping the whole thing altogether. But Sprain persevered, applying the knowledge and willpower derived from those struggles to get The Lamb As Effigy across the finish line. Clocking in at nearly two hours, The Lamb As Effigy resembles an aural parallel to the human experience itself, with all the glorious beauty, crushing brutality, and unexplainable chaos that comes with it intact. Explosions of earth-sundering guitars, angelic keys, swirling strings, and bursts of improvised electronic noise coalesce to weave a visceral yet unique sonic tapestry bearing hints of no-wave, sound collage, 20th-century avant-garde, and free jazz. Spanning bellowing howls, emphatic spoken word, and nuanced croons, Alex Kent's dynamic vocal delivery adds texture to these eight meditations on otherwise immaterial topics and the meaning or the lack thereof they embody.

Repress due in soon, this one on red vinyl, note new price. For fans of Jesus Lizard, Melvins, Korn, Nick Cave, and, The Flenser. Must anticipated debut full-length from Oklahoma-based noise rock band. Multiple vinyl pressing of the band’s EPs on cult noise rock label Reptilian Records have quickly sold out. There’s a sick irony to how a country that extols rhetoric of individual freedom, in the same gasp, has no problem commodifying human life as if it were meat to feed the insatiable hunger of capitalism. If this is American nihilism taken to its absolute zenith, then God’s Country, the first full length record from Oklahoma City noise rock quartet Chat Pile is the aural embodiment of such a concept. Having lived alongside the heaps of toxic refuse that the band derives its name from, the fatalism of daily life in the American Midwest permeates throughout the works of Chat Pile, and especially so on its debut album. Exasperated by the pandemic, the hopelessness of climate change, the cattle shoot of global capitalism, and fueled by “...lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of THC,” God’s Country is as much of an acknowledgement of the Earth’s most assured demise as it is a snarling violent act of defiance against it. Within its over forty minute runtime, the album displays both Chat Pile’s most aggressively unhinged and contemplatively nuanced moments to date, drawing from its preceding two EPs and its score for the 2021 film, Tenkiller. In the band’s own words, the album is, at its heart, “Oklahoma’s specific brand of misery.” A misery intent on taking all down with it and its cacophonous chaos on its own terms as opposed to idly accepting its otherwise assured fall. This is what the end of the world sounds like.

Self-recorded indie experimentalist from the Pacific Northwest. For fans of Grouper, The Microphones, Unwound’s Leaves Turn Inside You. Features Madeline Johnston (Midwife), Alex Kent (Sprain), Lula Asplund, a chamber ensemble and more. In 2019, Drowse’s Kyle Bates set out to produce a self-recorded new album. Marked by moving across state lines, long-distance relationships, and deaths in the family, the following years proved to be metamorphic. Now, three years later, he’s emerged with Wane Into It, continuing a distinctly Pacific Northwestern tradition of self-recording indie experimentalists (Grouper, The Microphones, Unwound’s Leaves Turn Inside You). One of the most impactful moments came during the looming passing of a family member. With death expected, the choice was made to conduct a bizarre “living-wake” gathering—with the soon-to-be1deceased in attendance. Shortly after, Bates found himself disturbed, preoccupied with the abstraction of memory. The experience led him to reassess the tool one uses to curate our selective memories: the internet. The internet, which creeped into even more aspects of life during the pandemic, serves as our self-made digital link to the past. Its uncaring presence layered over humbling thoughts of death and his own childhood memories of the Oregon Coast as he worked on Wane Into It; life’s hyperreal texture sank into the recordings as he felt his body age and wane. Big sounds were captured in bedrooms, hallways, practice spaces, forests, and on highways throughout West Coast vibraphones chime over black metal guitars, a mellotron drones under degraded samples, violins splinter against granular field recordings. In the process of documenting these aural moments Bates completed an MFA at Mills College, coloring the album with shades of avant electronic and minimalist composition (Pauline Oliveros, Terry Riley, Maryanne Amacher, Sarah Davachi etc…). To realize this scope Drowse collaborated with Madeline Johnston (Midwife), Alex Kent (Sprain), Lula Asplund, a chamber ensemble and more. Bates’s songwriting and production have never been more lucid; sounds flicker as he sings with fragile intensity. The record, Drowse’s third for The Flenser, impressionistically distills loss, distance, mystery, prescription drugs, the preservation of memory via recording, and ambient anxiety through its titular act: to Wane Into It, to disappear awaiting the next moon phase, water returning to sea before reemerging as a wave. Track Listing: 1. Untrue In Headphones 2. Mystery Pt. 2 3. (Ashes Over The Pacific Northwest) 4. Wane Into It 5. Telepresence 6. Gabapentin 7. Blue Light Glow 8. Three Faces (Cyanoacrylate) 9. Ten Year Hangover / Deconstructed Mystery

Experimental black metal from Brooklyn featuring the conductor of the Glenn Branca Ensemble. For fans of Krallice, Mizmor, Liturgy. Also featuring member of Pyrrhon, Weeping Sores, Glorious Depravity, and Seputus. There’s a real sense of loss on Brooklyn experimental black metalists Scarcity’s debut album Aveilut, an inescapable presence of the realities of death. Multi-instrumentalist Brendon Randall-Myers (conductor of the Glenn Branca Ensemble since Branca’s passing) wrote Aveilut while processing the sudden deaths of two people close to him, tracked it while caught in Beijing’s first lockdown of 2020, and finished it while surrounded by the overwhelming plague visuals of New York’s early COVID peak. Back in Brooklyn, vocalist Doug Moore (of Pyrrhon, Weeping Sores, Glorious Depravity, and Seputus) soon found himself in the midst of an equally bleak lockdown experience—living next to a funeral home when New York City was America’s COVID epicenter. From conception through development, tangible death surrounded Aveilut. The result of such a profound closeness with death is this grief-stricken release, which takes its name from the Hebrew word for mourning. 72-note octaves, alternate tunings, psychoacoustic phenomena and macro-phrases embody the hugeness of loss, the inexplicable space of death’s void that Randall-Myers faced both on a personal and existential scale. Together with Moore’s gripping vocal delivery and stark lyrics, the album takes the form of a hyperobject, an entity with such vastness and reach that it’s difficult for the human mind to comprehend. Consisting of one 45-minute composition, the music is black metal roughly in the vein of Jute Gyte, Krallice, Mare Cognitum, and Enhare—with hefty doses of post-Branca microtonal guitar abuse, and a cinematic scope that draws on Randall-Myers’ work with orchestras. Aveilut’s mathematical abstraction and lyrical focus on the greatness of the void breed raw emotion, attempting to represent a catastrophe, the vastness and inevitability of things outside one’s control, as well as a direct expression of grief, a kind of requiem. Though born of Randall-Myers and Moore’s intense intimacy with absence, Aveilut is an attempt to present a harrowing universal representation of death’s true form. Tracklist: 1 I 2 II 3 III 4 IV 5 V

San Francisco band touches upon black metal, blues, ambient and more. Of all things, it’s laughter that pervades Mamaleek’s Diner Coffee, the San Francisco metal deconstructionists’ sonically crushing ode to the humor found within catastrophe, American diners, and “the little things.” Featuring a mix of live performances, samples, and field recordings, Diner Coffee laughs through its harsh songs in an attempt to reflect the camaraderie found at the heart of global calamities and changing personal situations. It’s an homage to the quotidian set to the backdrop of the mythologized, sanctuary-like properties of a diner, reveling in irony-less nostalgia. Mamaleek embodies this ethos on and off the record. Originally two anonymous brothers, the past few years have seen Mamaleek adding members and venturing into live performance. Diner Coffee, following in the footsteps of 2020’s Come & See, features new, unfamiliar, unknown voices—including expanded experiments with horns, woodwinds, and strings and a Bay Area-local blues harmonica player who improvised recorded selections during practices. The resulting tracks touch on signifiers from black metal, blues, ambient, and more. Diner Coffee simultaneously represents the band’s artistic progression and the state of the world. Taking a surprisingly optimistic perspective, Mamaleek once again puts forward a project of left-field, wholly unique compositions, eluding easy categorization and furthering their abstraction of genre. “The group cloaks its music in the kind of warm, hypnotic distortion that defines shoegaze, and underneath that haze is a style that’s conceptually abrasive yet altogether beautiful.” Forbes //

Tracklist 1 Libations to Sacred Clowns 2 Boiler Room 3 Badtimers 4 Save Your Poor Wicked Soul 5 Grief and a Headhunter's Rage 6 Wharf Rats in the Moonlight 7 Diner Coffee

Long overdue pressing of cult band’s most sought after release. Engineered and remastered by Jack Shirly (Deafheaven, Bosse-de-Nage, Oathbreaker). For fans of Have a Nice Life, Xasthur, and Planning For Burial. Entirely remastered and includes a never before heard bonus track!! Mamaleek’s Kurdaitcha is finally back in print! The San Francisco-based duo released their third album of weirdo black metal, Kurdaitcha, on the legendary cult label Enemies List Home Recordings (Have a Nice Life, Giles Corey), and it quickly sold out. For years the LP has been a hard to find collector’s item. Kurdaitcha finds the project in its initial period of creating music influenced by black metal, hip hop, jazz, and spirituals. Founded in 2008 in the Bay Area by two anonymous brothers, Mamaleek has explored a vast sonic territory on the edge of a genre renown for its aversion to change. Their expert utilization of left-field samples and unconventional instrumentation, and their insistent drive to experiment continues to set the band apart from their peers. This pressing of Kurdaitcha has been remastered and features a previously unreleased bonus track with a gold foil stamped jacket. “Mamaleek are the great destroyers.” — Invisible Oranges // “An incredibly rich and rewarding experience.” —Heavy Blog Is Heavy // “Is it good, though? It’s fucking mental. It’s amazing. It’s absolutely horrible. It’s barely listenable at times and yet you can’t turn it off. The music is perfect. Like broken glass is perfect.” —Echoes And Dust // “The group cloaks its music in the kind of warm, hypnotic distortion that defines shoegaze, and underneath that haze is a style that’s conceptually abrasive yet altogether beautiful.” — FORBES

There's a tendency in metal to mistake aggression for honesty, volume for depth. To confuse the performance of darkness with its actual weight. Hidden Fires Burn Hottest, the new album from San Francisco-based post-black metal band Bosse-de-Nage, sidesteps this entirely. It’s the group’s most fully realized work yet, precisely because it refuses to be pinned down.

Bosse-de-Nage have been working with The Flenser for over fifteen years. They were one of the first bands the label ever partnered with and have the longest active relationship in the label's history. But unlike most bands who build momentum through constant touring and visibility, Bosse-de-Nage has largely existed apart from the music world's usual machinery. They've evolved on their own terms, in relative isolation, allowing the work to develop without outside pressure or influence. What began rooted in black metal anonymity has mutated into something that actively defies categorization. The aggression is still there, but it's no longer the point. Hidden Fires Burn Hottest finds the band treating emotions like physical objects, feelings with spatial properties. “No Such Place"" describes a space that can't exist but does anyway, somewhere between thought and location. ""Immortality Project"" examines infinite possibility not as promise but as problem, endless options collapsing under their own weight. These songs don't use metaphor to describe emotion. They make emotion into something you could theoretically touch.
Tracked by Jack Shirley (Deafheaven, Oathbreaker) at Atomic Garden East and mixed and mastered by Richard Chowenhill of Agriculture, Hidden Fires Burn Hottest was years in development, with some tracks beginning in 2018.

The long writing process offered time that most records don't get. Time to live with ideas, revise endlessly, to let structures settle. For the first time, lyricist Bryan Manning wrote everything in advance, creating a surplus to pull from rather than working under deadline pressure. The difference shows.
Coming off Further Still, an album built on constraint and economy, Bosse-de-Nage sought the opposite: sprawl, strangeness, fewer rules. Space for ideas to develop without rushing them. Dynamics that move through quiet as much as noise. Presence earned through atmosphere instead of volume. The record even includes ""Mementos,"" which might be considered the first love song the band has ever written.

Nothing here coheres into a theme. These are pieces pulled from low moments and private feelings made public through sound. The band has never been interested in positivity, in music that resolves cleanly or offers comfort. But bleakness doesn't mean humorlessness. There's something darkly funny running through much of it, even when it shouldn't be.
Hidden Fires Burn Hottest doesn't explain itself. It just insists: what you feel is as real as what you can see."

Los Angeles trio Faetooth sophomore album Labyrinthine is a deeply felt exploration of emotional weight: grief, memory, uncertainty, and the quiet work of growing around your own wounds. Following the band's 2022 debut Remnants of the Vessel, which introduced the band’s signature blend of heaviness and mysticism, Labyrinthine pushes further inward. True to its name, the album winds through a maze of feeling and form, where meaning is never handed over easily. It’s rooted in self-discovery through disorientation, the idea that understanding comes not from escape, but from getting lost. Ari May (guitars and vocals), Jenna Garcia (bass and vocals), and Rah Kanan (drums) manage to stay grounded in the immediate in parallel with fantasy themes of the band's namesake. Labyrinthine holds space for this contradiction; tenderness and intensity, restraint and release. The band's self-branded “fairy doom” sound fits between shoegaze, doom, and grunge. It isn’t just texture; it’s a framework for navigating the unsaid. Like the myth that inspired its title, Labyrinthine doesn’t end in victory, but in confrontation—not with escape, but with the Minotaur. Only here, the Minotaur isn’t a monster. It’s something quiet and more familiar: unresolved feelings, old memories, and sadness that refuse to stay buried. The album winds like a maze, sometimes heavy, sometimes hushed, always intentional. Faetooth isn’t chasing catharsis. They’re creating space to reflect, to feel, and maybe to get a little lost along the way.
Artist quote: "White Noise" emerged from a diary entry, and is a relentless and intense reflection on inner turmoil. We’re often drawn to the familiar, even when we don’t realize we’re reaching out for it. It is an emotional upheaval, carrying harsh truths that weigh heavily on the heart. Guitarist, Ari May mentions, “Performing the song always takes me back to a specific place, even if just for a moment.”
“Riffs and melodies brimming with loneliness and longing… this band’s incantations affect my mood the whole day after listening.” — The Sleeping Shaman
“Bringing otherworldly hazy doom goodness… dreamy clean vocals, echoing harsh vocals, entrancing riffs, meditative shoegaze melodies.” — Nine Circles
“Slow, lumbering behemoths of great weight… couched in a melancholy atmosphere and explosions of crushing heaviness.” - Where Strides The Behemoth