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“Cthonic Rites” -Moss
The long day is winding down. You’re home from your mundane day job, and have nothing to do but wait to fall asleep so you can haul your bloated carcass out of bed and shit, get dressed, and piss off back to the time clock. Maybe you watch TV, or eat a microwavable meal in bed, or masturbate furiously until your genitals are raw and chaffed; or maybe you decide now is the time to listen to music, perhaps something as oppressive and infinitely miserable as your life has turned out to be.
Cthonic Rites is a massive bastard of an album, packed with all the misery of this world and the inevitable horrors lurking beyond. Crushing drums, riffs as thick and slow as an obese hooker in high heels, and all the howling agony of the pit manifested into a dank, murky cacophony. It’s like being locked into a casket filled with carnivorous beetles and hurled into the bottom of the ocean while still alive, begging for a death that won’t come fast enough.
Drone on.
Support Moss and listen below:
Cthonic Rites by Moss -
“N.V.” -Dragged Into Sunlight/Gnaw Their Tongues
“N.V.” (Negative Volume) is a collaboration between Dragged Into Sunlight and Gnaw Their Tongues, and is one of the most pulverizing, psychotic records I’ve ever heard. Even from the beginning, this torturous album violates and debases the senses like nothing else, but more importantly, it paints a lurid picture of humanity distilled down to its most feral, baser instincts: at the bottom of it all is pain and hatred: hatred of fellow humans, of civilization, of life, and of self. Abrasive, violent, blistering, noxious, and absolutely fucking miserable.
But that doesn’t mean it’s not relatable, too.
I used to blast “Absolver” in the cab of my truck while smoking and shooting crack. While doing so, I always thought could feel something, some external force or presence creeping into my head, stoking the fires of my madness and driving me into a frenzied state. The swirling, gut churning torment and unstoppable berserk hatred I felt was like being possessed. I wanted nothing more than to rend this world and everyone in it into dust and dregs, and then to die screaming, dissolving slowly into ashen nothingness, but all I could do was seethe with impotent rage as my sanity was eroded further by drugs, sleep deprivation, and my choice of music.
Negative Volume isn’t for everyone, of course, but if you find yourself seeking something truly, terrifyingly awful to listen to, look no further.Support the bands: Listen to N.V. here:
N.V. by Dragged Into Sunlight/Gnaw Their Tongues -
“Rise of the Specter” -Old Tower
My first introduction to widely applauded dungeon synth act Old Tower was 2017’s “Rise of the Specter”. Divided into two parts -each spanning almost fifteen minutes in length- “Rise…” is simply gorgeous. This is one of the most professional sounding, well-constructed dungeon synth releases I’ve heard. At once mournful and triumphant, the poignant medieval sound Old Tower offers herein is one that has been often attempted, but seldom achieved. Old Tower elevated my expectations of dungeon synth to new peaks. This album speaks in whispers to those with the right ears, and it speaks of ancestral tombs, medieval strife, vengeful old ghosts, and bloody imperial conquest.
The original 2017 release has been recently reissued as of 2018 in a double CD digipack called “Rise of the Spectral Horizons” which features both Rise of the Specter and 2016’s “Spectral Horizons”.
Support Old Tower here:
The Rise Of The Spectral Horizons by OLD TOWER -
“The Haunting Choir”
I still remember brilliant kaleidoscopic light and the low thrum it made as it permeated my body, carrying me higher and higher, and deeper within the unlimited inner-space in my head. The music would open doors to emotions I’d not felt in years -or at all- and amplify the more familiar ones as it painted vivid sonic landscapes in my mind’s eye, rising and declining, ebbing and flowing like a stormy ocean. Always, I yearned for those distant places inside of me, locked behind doors that could only be opened by chemical keys.
This pristine introspective state would fade and return fuller and more vivid with each increased dose, and I would remain there for hours, sometimes days -until the money would run out: then came the rage, the frantic, desperate lust to return to that world of euphoric calm. If I had no money, I would get a front: if I couldn’t get a front, I’d sulk home and sink into a deep pit of despair and self-loathing, like being tied up and cast into the bottom of a well, looking up at the opening and seeing it sealed before my eyes as the light at the opening gradually closed to a pinprick-aperture, closing into solid black.
It didn’t take long for me to realize that the ethereal inner world I longed for was a cruel bait and switch. I saw an image of a perfect life, a life that could never exist; saw it corrupted, violated, and ripped away revealing only sickly grey and brown motes of living cancer swarming in a tar-black crypt. From then on, the euphoric state I craved was never achievable again. I’d do more, and more, and more to get close to the gilded gates, only to fumble with the key as those gates inevitably faded once more and the reality I was trying to escape darkened. There was no music here, no choirs or bells: there still isn’t, but in my head, I can still hear them singing, calling to me: almost two years later, they never stop calling.
And that’s the worst nightmare of all, because I know they’ll never stop haunting me, and that perhaps even in death I may never escape.
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“Daemonsgate (OST)” -Ian Howe, Barry Leitch
The ’90s were a goldmine of excellent dark fantasy games: Several of the Ultima games, numerous Might and Magic titles, Heretic/Hexen, Diablo 1 and 2, Planescape: Torment, the list goes on. All of these titles, and many more, explored the darker side of fantasy gaming, with gritty imagery, dark storylines, conquered worlds burning in the grip of demonic influence; themes of loss, utter destruction, and omnipresent danger were commonplace in these titles.
While all boasted similar aesthetics and story tropes, another key element of these games was the use of dark, eerie keyboard/MIDI soundtracks to fully immerse players in these dark realms. The scores used by these games may seem unfashionable by today’s standards (even with regard to gaming), but it’s impossible not to note the profound impact on players that these composers had. One game which, as far as I can tell, mostly slipped through the cracks unnoticed by the larger community was Daemonsgate.
Daemonsgate is a dark fantasy roleplaying game released in 1993 on MS-DOS and was created by the now-defunct company Imagetec Design. The story begins in the city of Tormis, which is under siege by demonic hordes from beyond a portal called the Daemonsgate. You take the role of the main character, Gustavus, and must recruit a party to stop the demons from spilling into the world and break the siege. The gameplay was somewhat convoluted at times, but the score, composed by Ian Howe and Barry Leitch, was downright sublime. It may have been a simple, minimalistic 8-bit recording, but the soundtrack of Daemonsgate absolutely succeeded in evoking a sense of otherworldly immersion in the game. There is so much emotion breathing behind that tinny-sounding 8-bit mask; it’s easy to imagine yourself standing atop the flaming walls of Tormis, breathing the smoke of the ongoing siege, smelling the decay in the air, hearing the sky crackle with demonic lightning and bracing for death at any time.
Daemonsgate is considered abandonware nowadays, but you can still obtain the files from several different websites; additionally, it has been recently made available on Steam. I’m proud to say that I remember playing this game often as a child on my father’s first computer. It came on a set of floppy disks and had to be accessed via command line. I was young, but I never forgot any of it, from the impressive and daunting box art, to the lore in the thick players manual, and, of course, the original soundtrack, which to this day makes me yearn for my old days of playing Dungeons and Dragons with friends back in high school on Friday nights.
I never could figure out how to escape the city of Tormis back then, but I’ll never forget how heavy and dark this game’s atmosphere was and how it made me feel to play it. I still listen to the Daemonsgate soundtrack to this day. For fans of early RPG gaming, dark fantasy, dungeon synth.
Listen below:
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“Well, What Now?”
I’ll be clean two years as of the thirtieth this coming November. One question I’ve often asked myself since quitting crack and coke is “well, what now?” It took a long time to pull my life back together and rebuild trust in my relationships with friends and family, and I can’t forget the financial hole I dug for myself either, which I have (mostly) climbed out of, but I would be lying if I told you that I didn’t miss packing a fat stem and obliterating myself, or seeing the register, that beautiful spurt of crimson blood when I would find a vein right before blasting off, bells ringing all the way as the world spun and warped about me.
It’s hard to shake how great it feels being high. Almost two years later, I still think about it. The part that keeps me clean is everything else. I’m too tired to go back out and chase all night anymore. I was lucky enough to not have been arrested while driving like an imbecile through parts of town I had no good business in, fucked out of my mind. I got pulled over once on International and thought I was going to shit my pants. My headlight was out, apparently. No big deal, except that the car was packed with drugs and used rigs. I still had my work outfit on, a nice button-up with some dress pants and my hospital badge -which I think is what saved me.
My biggest reason for staying clean is my daughter. I never want to see her in that same shitty place I was. “Well, what now?” Now, it’s time to grow up, to be a father, to be a husband, to be a man. If you don’t have a reason to live, or to get clean, look outside yourself and find one. The world can be a beautiful place. Life is bitter at times, but it can be sweet, too. Give life a chance. Give yourself a chance. You deserve it, whether you believe it or not.
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“Vexovoid” – Portal
Vexovoid is a panic-inducing primordial nightmare, like a great and terrible leviathan rising up from an infinite black ocean and dragging itself ashore, pregnant with soul-sucking leeches waiting to burst forth from their hellish womb to feed. Rife with chaos and utter barbarism, Vexovoid is a scathing cacophony so vitriolic that the pure sonic evil it conjures is almost palpable. Each track spews forth its own demons, and each fresh listen brings a new experience. Absolute sensory-obliterating sonic misery. Hearing this album and its massive, pulverizing sound is like having your bowels torn out of your asshole.
Support Portal here:
Vexovoid by PORTAL -
“Night People: Portrait of a Degenerate”
“Self, 3” Night time in Tuscawilla Park, particularly during the summer months, is sticky and humid; the sweaty darkness teeming with delusions and apparitions as headlights blink in and out of view; sirens echo in the distance along with the buzzing of mosquitos, the chirruping of crickets, the croaking of toads in the park’s many ponds all coalesce into a crepuscular choir of cold-blooded pests and vermin whose volume rises and falls between each injection. The cab of the truck is sticky with sweat and the smell of filthy sex, and countless needles and many months worth of various trash items litter the floor.
The shadows are alive, whispering of danger and temptation. The drugs are running low -and so are my spirits- as I flip the cab light on to probe for a vein. My arms and hands are sore and dotted with little scattered clusters of track marks. It occurs to me that I am dying.
I see my face in the rear-view mirror, its features sunken, gaunt and pallid. My grimy forehead and wild bloodshot eyes are reflected hopelessly into view. I try not to think about it. Moments later, I find a vein and forget I ever cared. The bell is ringing again, and the fire is rising in my throat and behind my possessed eyes. Brimstone? No, vinegar. I’m no longer human. The shot wears off slowly, and I sink back into what’s left of my skin: another screaming abomination, misshapen and unclean, lurking in the lurid dark and longing for a fix that won’t last.
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“Evoke.Contrast.Evolve” -Escaping Aghartha
Agartha or “Aghartha” is defined by Wikipedia as “a legendary city that is said to be located in the Earth’s core”. Upon reading this, it’s easy to imagine a subterranean realm of labyrinthine crystal tunnels and underground spires bejeweled with amethyst and opal, its denizens silently traversing the roots of the earth to worship old gods at silent, hidden altars. This is a glimpse of the imagery that the moniker Escaping Aghartha conjures in my mind, and my introduction to this project is songwriter Avery Dart’s foremost opus, “Evoke.Contrast.Evolve.”
What originally began, according to Escaping Aghartha’s bandcamp page, as a dark ambient project, has since metamorphosed into a funereal hybrid of the former and doom metal, with blackened elements as sharp and finely honed as an obsidian blade. “Evoke…” exudes a soft melancholy, while maintaining a palatable heaviness with hints of the early works of the “Peaceville Three” (Anathema, Paradise Lost, and most significantly in this case, My Dying Bride). Dart’s vocals, both clean and growled, combined with elegiac lyrics, bright piano tones and lumbering riffs create a fantastic picture of windswept tundras and frozen wastes, isolation, desolation, and desperation.
Dark ambient elements remain an integral part of this project, and have been skillfully blended with the heavier side of this recording, which frequently alternates between heavy tones and soft, dolorous string sections, with almost seamless transitions from sound to sound. The soothing blend of darkness and melody offered herein is noteworthy for the gray, overcast atmosphere that permeates this album. Evoke.Contrast.Evolve is the auditory equivalent of freezing to death slowly in utter solitude and knowing your corpse will never be recovered from beneath the hoarfrost.
Support Escaping Aghartha here:
Evoke.Contrast.Evolve by Escaping Aghartha -
“Poisonous Offerings”
I never tried heroin: coke and crack yes, by all routes of administration, but never that. Once you’ve gone so far down the rabbit hole, it’s go big or fuck off, right? Sure, I was curious about H (dog food, “her-on”) and I was miserable enough to contemplate giving it a shot (pun intended) but only on my way out: basically, I had reserved the best of the worst for last, if things got too heavy, my plan was to buy a stupid amount of the stuff and blast off one final time in Tuscawilla Park after nightfall, but otherwise, I feared that heroin would further exacerbate the myriad problems in my already crumbling life. If shooting and smoking crack was heavy, then heroin would have broken me for good.
That said, there were plenty of opportunities for me to have “sampled” it. Once, in a nicer-than-expected beachside hotel in Daytona Beach Shores, I had rented a room with my girlfriend and a girl named Katie. Katie’s boyfriend (who we later learned was actually her pimp) went by the name Jet, and Jet had a couple of oddball friends who I guess dealt drugs with him. So, I was shacked up in this hotel, shooting up while my girlfriend and Katie were out trying to procure more drugs. Jet and two of his miscreant business partners were in the room watching me. It was uncomfortable. I could feel them judging me, mocking me and looking down.
One of Jet’s associates began to speak. He asked me if I wanted to try some real good stuff. Skeptically, I asked him what he meant. Of course, he was talking about her-on (heroin). He told me he would give me some to try if I wanted. I thought about it for a moment. I didn’t like the way he smiled when he propositioned me; I detested his dark, leering eyes, his wry grin: I knew what he wanted, and what he wanted was a captive audience. Crack was addictive, sure, and it will make you crazy trying to come off, but heroin, once you’re in, you’re in or you’re puking and shitting your guts out, hot, cold, shaking, and miserable, simultaneously. For once in that awful period, I made a good call and told him no, that I was miserable enough.
My decision to decline was reaffirmed when he continued to press and persuade me. I was pretty fucked up, but this little shit was persistent. He thought he could take advantage of my weakened, fucked up, sleep-deprived state and grow his clientele, his little herd of addicts, who would do anything to keep from getting sick, and that angered me. I stood my ground and told him, again, “no”.
Eventually the bastard fucked off. To this day, it is a great point of pride to me that I was able to walk away from that scenario without descending deeper into the abyss of addiction. I saw myself as a beaten man, without hope and pleading for death, but in hindsight, I was stronger than I ought to have been in that moment, and in a few others as well. I knew that life wasn’t for me, and I never stopped aspiring and reaching for a solution, however weak my grasp seemed, I held fast and persevered. So, if you are suffering, and reading this now, do as I did and hold fast. You’re always stronger than you think.
As for the would-be dealer and his poisonous offerings, I hope he gets a taste of his own medicine, if he hasn’t already.
Towers of Rust 