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ALARIC

Claustrophobic, gloomy, and epically grandiose, we find the four members coming together at the height of their powers. Shane Baker’s lyrics are simultaneously deeply personal and universal in scope. They reflect hard times in a fallen world at a time of monumental change in the lives of the band members. These are emotional and deeply physical journeys they are taking us on here. This is inky, blackened stuff, but not without a glint of hope. It could be moonlight shining through a crack in the wall or maybe just a sickly glow out of the corner of your eye.  Jason Willer pummels the drums, driving the band forward with power and finesse and then dropping down into a roiling boil of tribal toms. This is heavy. Bassist Rick Jacobus deals in woozy but solid lines that often carry the melody while filling out the sonic space with riding drone notes. “I am going for a "sheets of electric rain" guitar sound”, says guitarist Russ Kent, and he is absolutely a master of his craft. He creates scintillating, cascading moments of beauty that open into crushing and aggressive distortion. Also on this recording the band enlisted the sound artist and experimental electronic musician Thomas Dimuzio to contribute his unique atmospheric investigations to enhance the album. Dimuzio utilizes a Buchla Polyphonic radio tuner, modular analog synthesizers, and other non-traditional methods to create his art. Make no mistake, this is not passive listening. These are songs. Instant classics for a new dark age.

Alaric began their journey in 2008 with an eye toward creating a moody and compelling music of a sort not often performed in this day and age. A different concept of doom, if you will. Beginning with influences from such progenitors as Killing Joke and Christian Death to the darkest, heaviest punk bands and the most epic psychedelia, the band has dedicated itself to creating a shadowy electric guitar driven music that is truly their own. When they moved to document their songs on their first album, reviews were glowing. Zero Tolerance Magazine proclaimed, “Morbid, threatening and obsidian… Album of the Year by a long shot." In a review of their split with Atriarch,  CVLT Nation wrote, “…one experiences an immersion in watery black textures as if drawn welcomingly into a drowning, slowly swirling, abyss.”

 

ALARIC features​ within its ranks current and former members of Dead And Gone, Pins Of Light, Noothgrush, Hedersleben, UK Subs, and Jello Biafra And Guantanamo School Of Medicine. ​

 

 

PINKISH BLACK

One of the most interesting and far-thinking experimental duos
currently active, PINKISH BLACK is a group that displays an unflinching capacity to dip their toes in all sorts of disparate musical markets, from doom metal and industrial to post-punk and no-wave.

 

„Pinkish Black, the Fort Worth, Texas duo

mixing deathrock with krautrock, analog drone with glimmering melody, and the solitary atmosphere of horror movie soundtracks with the welcoming voice of Daron Beck. Think Christian Death morphing with Tortoise, or Ian Curtis guesting with Goblin. Beck may also bring to mind a goth Mike Patton, Peter Murphy, or Killing Joke’s Jaz Coleman: At times he snarls and howls like he’s in hell, but he mostly croons, chants, and pushes his crystalline baritone skyward.

At a Pinkish Black show I put on a few years ago, Beck carefully set up his keyboards and synths like a cocoon, while his lifelong friend and drummer Jon Teague bashed things beside him. It was visually intense, and the obvious connection between the two was moving. As they told me over the phone recently, Pinkish Black is a band that rose from tragedy, and their music is inspired by some of the darkest aspects of humanity—but it’s also animated by the joy that comes from making music together and sharing a history“. (geklaut bei pitchfork)