LABORED BREATH: Debut Album "Dyspnea" from Crushing New USBM Entity to See the Light April 2 2021 Via Sentient Ruin - Track Unveiled at Invisible Oranges.

We’re proud to announce the release of emerging USBM entity Labored Breath’s towering debut album "Dyspnea", to be released in early April on LP, MC, and digital formats.

Thirty six minutes of soul-destroying evolved black metal, "Dyspnea" is the towering debut offering from this new Oakland CA-based one-man black metal entity, a project conceived as unapologetic devotion to the moment of reckoning of one's ultimate finality, and as a conceptual aural evisceration of mankind's minuscule and pathetic existence within the blink of an eye of an infinite, eternal void. The literal medical definition of gasping for air as the final breath appears at the horizon, and of finite stubborn existence attempting to subvert the infinity and inevitability of death, "Dyspnea" is a harrowing trip deep inside humanity's biggest fears and its all-encompassing insignificance. It is the moment of realization and the crippling instance within one’s existence in which the immensity and omnipotence of death pierces the final and most armored under layers of consciousness and denial and stares at the human being straight in the eye to make it kneel in the shadow of total unavoidability. Bridging the spellbinding atmospherics and evocative power of Icelandic black metal (Sinmara, Carpe Noctem, Misþyrming, Svartidauði) with the crushing violence and brute antagonism of French black metal (Aosoth, Drastus, Antaeus), Labored Breath has created an intimidating and majestic black metal crucible that shape-shifts and morphs in perpetual motion, stirring an immense sinister aural maelstrom of tenebrous surrealism and masterful sonic destruction as ultimate and supreme homage to the omnipotence and splendor of our endless Destroyer.

Leading up the album’s release, the track “Belie” has been unveiled exclusively by Invisible Oranges, with the notorious metal blog asserting that “Dyspnea forges out on a different axis to create a belligerent and intense trail to lesser-tread territory in black metal“ - you can read the full feature and check out the track HERE.

The brainchild of SF Bay Area-based solo musician JK, Labored Breath is the artist's sonic interpretation of the slow and inexorable claiming of death. The idea and concept for the project came to into JK’s mind during the time of self-seclusion imposed by the COVID pandemic, and the times of uncertainty, pessimism, fear, and death which ensued from it worldwide. As a skilled and highly proficient multi instrumentalist, the obligate isolation and lack of opportunities to make music with other people pushed JK to finally pursue a long planned and fully self-exectued solo project with no other instrumentalists involved. It is not purely coincidental that the album is titled “Dyspnea", like the condition which plagues people with difficulty breathing, as the COVID pandemic primarily resulted in widespread respiratory symptoms worldwide, as such the project is a true snapshot of the artist’s reality and of its most harrowing and demoralizing possible outcomes and developments. It is a reflection on death in a time in which death entered everyone’s consciousness and every day reality. It is the onset of reckoning, the moment in which the end comes into sight for the first time in a person's life. It is the total and unmistakeable first manifestation of death to the living, and Labored Breath explores this concept sonically via the implacable and merciless life-devourment of black metal. Aside from the aforementioned French black metal and Icelandic black metal, Labored Breath remains a purely USBM-bred entity with an almost encyclopedic yet defiant approach to the craft, and a strong penchant for unpredictability and unorthodoxy. Bands like Nightbringer, Ruins if Beverast, Blut Aus Nord, as well as certain strains of European funeral doom and death metal are also skillfully referenced or hinted at in the songwriting without ever becoming overly obvious structural identifiers, leaving the project perpetually shrouded in a profound sense of shapeshifting ambiguity.

"Dyspnea" is officially scheduled for an April 2 2021 release date on LP, MC, and digital, and can now be pre-ordered in all formats from our shop or Bandcamp.