One of the most anticipated underground extreme metal albums of the year, it is with great excitement that we can finally officially announce the release of Spire’s immense new sophomore LP "Temple of Khronos" coming on CD, tape, LP, and digital formats, five years after their genre-defying Iron Bonehead debut LP “Entropy” redefined the lineaments and identity of atmospheric black metal.
The obscure Australian dark metal futurists have finally returned with their immense sophomore full-length album "Temple of Khronos", a reality-bending psychedelic/progressive extreme metal masterpiece of the highest order that will disassociate the listener and teleport them outside their own consciousness, reality, and self. Continuing their cryptic inner war against metal traditionalism and musical conventions in general, this time the Australian atmospheric black metal shapeshifters have fearlessly peeled back the hazy outer layer of their primordial black metal sound to reveal a previously unseen, massive, and glistening, architecture of cinematic sonic dark matter that elevates their imaginative and visionary power to unseen heights, opening worlds inside the listener into which be drawn, trapped and dissolved within one's own consciousness and self. Immensely evocative, and shrouded in a profound and majestic mysticism, "Temple of Khronos" is a foreboding sonic gateway that will push your imagination to its limits as it explores the concepts of time as a deity, tyrant, and as ultimate engineer and destroyer of reality to connect the listener with an obscure and distant future civilization that in facing its own inevitable demise stares back into time facing us with our own nothingness, powerlessness and finality. The album's immense atmospheres and its seemingly boundless imaginative force stem primarily from its crisp but layered and dense production quality that works as a catalyst to channel an unseen and massive sensorial overload of sound in which cinematic and multilayered vocal arrangements (the temple's "choir"), lysergic atmospheres and winding, epic instrumental constructs cyclically collapse to surround the listener and submerge them in an otherworldly ritual of consciousness-altering and space-time distorting aural immensity.
In unveiling the track “Hymn III - Harbinger”, Invisible Oranges declared that the track “is indicative as to the rest of this upcoming album's sound. Featuring an exhilaratingly varied vocal performance and a driving, monumental rhythm section, Spire's new self treads new ground comfortably for this surprisingly forward-thinking artist.“ - you can read their feature HERE.
Once described by Fenriz of Darkthrone as "brilliant" and “taking the direction black metal SHOULD have in the 90s” - Spire emerged in Brisbane Australia from the cryptic minds of MR and VS over a decade ago. Ever shrouded in gloom and obscurity they released their first self-titled EP in 2010, a suffocating piece of ambient black metal that established them as a new rising force in their scene. Since then Spire has patiently and unwaveringly moved their sound into ever-increasing madness and unpredictability with a string of subsequent releases which have defied expectations at every turn. 2011 saw the birth of Spire's “Metaphorph” EP, a short piece of nihilistic insanity tainted with simmering violence, yet still drenched in the band’s signature near-tyrannical atmosphere. “Entropy”, the band's first full-length album released in 2016 by Iron Bonehead Productions took Spire even deeper into the depths of derangement, savagery and abstraction. The album stands as a showcase of the diversity of the band's style, ranging from eerie atmospheric instrumentals, to ferocious and unconstrained modern black metal, all the while accompanied by bestial screeches and meditative throat singing. Over the course of these releases, Spire shared the live stage with extreme metal heavy weights such as Blasphemy, Inquisition, Marduk, Batushka, and Portal. Since then the Void has remained still for four long years... until now. Enter Spire's second full-length epic “The Temple of Khronos” set for release in late 2020 via Sentient Ruin: the ultimate culmination of Spire’s spasmodic push toward and into unrestrained extreme metal futurism and ever-changing artistic delirium. A liturgy to Time itself…