ACEPHALIX: San Francisco Death Horde Announce New Album - New Song Revealed.

We could not be happier to work with 20 Buck Spin to release Acephalix's new crushing album Decreation on September 22 2017. While the Northwest label will be handling the CD/LP/Digital versions, Sentient Ruin will bring you a cassette version of the album, as has been in the case of "sister" band Vastum, with whom Acephalix shares two members (down from three).

Nothing is left to be said about Acephalix that hasn't been said before. We're talking about one of the most barbaric, involved, and blatantly ignorant death metal bands to have ever appeared in America. Having gotten their start around 2006 as a primitive and heavy crust band influenced by Wolfpack, Anticimex, and Discharge, the band eventually steered its sound toward the realm of the most demented and regressed death metal, soon ascending to role of kingpins among the Bay Area's most revered, feared, and gruesome extreme metal acts.

After having released albums on famed San Francisco crust label Prank Records, and then signing to Southern Lord in their "death metal" era for two albums, and sharing the stage with bands like Autopsy, Pentagram, Winter, Undergang, and beyond, the band dissolved in 2011, only to make a glorious return in 2015 with the writing of new material. Since their Southern Lord debut (2011's punishing Interminable Night) and for most of their recent history the band has been formed by core and founding members Dan Butler (also vocalist of Vastum), David Benson (also drummer Depressor), guitarist Kyle House (also in Serpents of Dawn, and ex-Poison Idea and ex-Vastum) and bassist Luca Indrio (also in Vastum, and Necrot).

Interminable Night also marked the mutation from Acephalix's early crust punk leanings into a blood-thirsty old school death metal war machine, as (while still retaining a solid crust-punk framework) they began to embrace the style and aesthetics of ancient Scandinavian death metal bands like Dismember, Grave, Demigod, Nihilist, etc, assaulting the listener with a maelstrom of buzz sawing riff madness, dark and perverted atmospheres, and punishing caveman rhythms. On top of their neaderthalian and feral musical approach, Acephalix have been known for Dan Butler's intimidating presence and revolting lyrics dealing with death, violence, and perversions of the most unnamable kind, and with his unpredictable stage presence which has seen Acephalix shows quickly escalate into chaos, with heaps of staked bodies, and people flying all over the place.

Today we're honored and excited to be a part of the continuation of this legacy from one of America's most praised, revered, and feared death metal hordes, as they prepare the release of Decreation - their most involved, bestial, and gruesome release to date, splendidly enhanced by Greg Wilkinson of Earhammer Studios' staggering low end production and Brad Boatright of Audiosiege's crisp and aggressive mastering. The coronation of the work is the incredible cover art done for the band by luminary Adam Burke.

You can already hear the song Suffer (Life in Fragments) right here, while cassette pre-orders are already live on our store and Bandcamp. Stay tuned for more songs to surface soon and for further announcements.

HELL: Oregon-Based Sludge-Doom Destroyers To Unleash Absurdly Crushing New Album - Track Streaming at CVLT Nation.

LOWER YOUR HEAD. It is with overwhelming excitement that we present to you the imminent release of the new, fourth, self-titled album by Salem, OR-based sludge-doom behemoths HELL. Coming initially as a limited edition cassette + digital product, this new and otherworldly colossus of absolutely implausible heaviness is set to once again shatter every record known to man of sheer musical tonnage. HELL are no mistery when it comes to unbelievably-sized riffs, rather they are a legend of extreme doom, but no one would have ever imagined that they could have outsized them selves, to create something of such hideously astonishing proportions. Simply put, this new self-titled opus of theirs will leave the listener scrambling for dear life as the shadow of this monster is cast for miles as it collapses upon them like an endless crumbling monolith. 

HELL is, and likely will forever be, the brainchild of sole mastermind M.S.W., a Salem, Oregon-based musician who's been the sole and constant driving force behind the project. M.S.W. writes, and, records every single HELL album on his own, working constantly in near complete seclusion and letting his imagination and emotions run free. What is created is a monolithic chasm of despair and dread that is boundless in its astounding enormity. With tunings so low to resemble complete collapse, speeds that  reach a state of hallucinating coma, and atmopsheres of unparalleled dread and misery, HELL's music has always been more a sort of mystical experience than mere listening one. M.S.W.'s music is one that touches emotional levels that barely seem real they are so deep, all while dwelling in an atonality, destructiveness, and immanent level of chaos and devastation that barely seem plausible they are so extreme and exaggerated.

Once again as by tradition completely written, performed, and recorded in every instrument by M.S.W. alone and in total isolation over a span of three years, this new self-titled HELL monster is the reaffirmation and consecration of one of modern doom's most harrowing, demoralizing, and imaginative prospects, and the final seal on their status of absolute legends in American underground extreme metal. Spanning seven inhumanly crushing songs, for over forty-five minutes of colossal and earth-shaking audial torture - HELL's new album is already a classic, and a tyrannically iconic masterpiece that shall forever be remembered as one of the most awe-inducing turning points in extreme doom, having raised the bar of what "heavy" is to implausible heights, and redefined the concept of musical oppression through a new realm of extremism.

Get a first incredible glimpse into the living underworld that is this monstrous record courtesy of CVLT Nation who are now streaming the skull-crushing track Wandering Soul HERE - calling HELL's new album a "hellacious" work from "a fucking evil sounding" band.

HELL's new album will drop on August 11 2017 as a digital product + limited edition cassette tape featuring unbelievable art by surreal horror artist Blial Cabal, and both versions can be now pre-ordered on our store and Bandcamp. An LP version of the album is in the works to be released sometime in the near future. 

AVERSIO HUMANITATIS: Sentient Ruin Releases Vinyl and Cassette Versions of "Longing for the Untold" Mini album - The Latest Masterpiece from Mysterious Spanish Black/Death Horde.

After a debut full-length album in 2011, and two splits in the following years, 2017 was the year that the visions and hallucinations germinating within the realm of Madrid, Spain's Aversio Humananitas really started to coalesce into otherworldly and godlike form. One can not deny the deeply "mental" and transcendental nature of this band's monstrous and gargantuan black metal, as upon first encounter the listener's senses are literally pulverized by a boundless chasm of cascading and devouring sound. Formed in the late 00s in Madrid Spain by a core and unchanged trio of mysterious locals, over the following years Aversio Humananitas' spell of conquest has seen the band slowly morph into a beast of implausible proportions and of ungraspable intents as they began to expand upon their black metal roots by embracing the ferality of the most mutated and cursed death metal. This transcendental and abhorrent metamorphosis into otherworldly sonic tyrant fully sublimated in their 2017 mini album Longing for the Untold, in which Aversio Humanitatis went from being a purely methodical and vaguely technical black metal band in the vein of Emperor, Satyricon or Abigor, to becoming something completely undefinable - shaped by the ever so apparent lineaments of an unquenchable black hole. A beast  capable of sonically harnessing the power of collapsing stars and of the very depths of hades.

Originally released on CD in early 2017, Aversio Humanitatis' tyrannical and majestic masterpiece Longing for the Untold now endures an inevitable second skin molt transforming into the true beast it was meant to become and assuming its final harrowing form as we bring you and enhanced re-release on vinyl and tape of this staggering and monumental black metal opus, now re-packaged with three bonus tracks from past splits and EPs as the B side and with new incredible artwork.

With Longing for the Untold this Spanish band has created a colossal behemoth of technically intimidating and sonically imposing progressive black metal that lunges forth toward the listener with crushing force, levitating out of solid darkness - its mass and shape monstrous and awe-inducing as it projects its monstrous silhouette against total darkness, resembling the stygian singularity of an inescapable black hole. Reminescent in style and execution to the darkened and cerebral craft of Icelandic black metal bandslike Zhrine, Svartidauði, Misþyrming, and similarly wretched black metal anomalies like Skáphe, and Deathspell Omega, and enhanced by the muscular build of dark death metal bands like Ulcerate, Abyssal, and Gorguts, Longing for the Untold more than a thing, is a place and time where the power of sound literally devours the senses turning perception into a smoldering and swarming void of sensorial awe and of transcendental sonic disintegration.

Vinyl and tapes now shipping worldwide and can be purchased on our store and Bandcamp along with digital products included.

FRIENDSHIP: "I&II" By Japanese Powerviolence Devastators Finally Available on Vinyl.

We are extremely proud and honored to announce the release of "I&II" on white, 180 gr, 45RPM vinyl - the full-length release from elusive and mysterious experimental powerviolence terrorists Friendship (also known as the Friendship Collective).  "I&II" is a compilation of tracks previously self-released by the band as two separate CD EPs (the I EP and the II EP) now both condensed by Sentient Ruin into a single castigating long player of maximum auditive torture. The I&II compilation masterfully showcases the full extent of the band’s absurd formula: a maelstrom of bleak and punishing powerviolence/grind ferocity colliding with the suffocating weight of the most abject sludge-doom, and further enhanced by the iconic and completely mindless approach to extreme metal and punk which has always characterized Japanese bands as being the most absurd and unpredictable out there.

Hailing from the Chiba prefecture of western Japan, Friendship are one of the most vile, antagonist, and visionary grind/powerviolence acts to have ever emerged from The Land of the Rising Sun. Their absurdly devastating music comes together as a collapsing black hole that devours everything with maniacal ferocity, sparing nothing from the plain of existence. In perfect adherence to the tradition of Japanese extreme music where everything is always taken to ridiculous and mindless extremes, Friendship's music is like a chain reaction that can not be stopped - the devastating consequence of an uncontrolled nuclear fission of Japan's most praised and iconic musical extremities: the mindless chaos of bands like Endon and Zeni Geva, the pulverizing blunt force trauma of bands like Unholy Grave and Death Side, and the cataclysmic sludge-doom aberrance of bands like Corrupted and Congenital Hell. Of course this hell on earth envisioned by the band far from stops to their sole Japanese roots. Instead their sound goes beyond, encompassing and embracing the full scale auditive terror of legendary American powerviolence bands like Nails, Column of Heaven, Man Is The Bastard, Iron Lung, and Hatred Surge, and the tormented sludge dirges of masters like Swans, Godflesh, Noothgrush, and Dystopia. 

Originally released on February 17 2017 by SR as a ltd. ed. cassette which sold out in record time and left outlets like CVLT Nation, No Clean Singing, Metal Injection, Metalsucks and beyond gasping in complete awe at the band's horrifying heaviness, Friendship's I&II now assumes its ultimate form as an inhumanly heavy sounding white vinyl record comprised again of twelve tracks of absolutely unfathomable violence, that will plunge the listener nt an authentic plight for survival, as they desperately try to survive the utterly senseless chaos unleashed upon them by these Japanese masters of complete sonic terror. 

Released in the EU by Danwbreed Records and in the US in collaboration with King of the Monsters Records, pre-orders for I&II vinyl records and digital products are now live on our store and on our Bandcamp.

A STICK AND A STONE: Oregon-based Ethereal Doom Outfit Unveil New Album - Track Streaming at CVLT Nation.

This July Oregon's A Stick And A Stone will release their brand new album The Long Lost Art of Getting Lost - a shimmering gem of experimental minimalistic doom that is set to wind back the hands of time to a time in which bands like OM, Earth, Boris, Orthodox and Goatsnake where redefining the lineaments of doom and post-rock. 

A Stick And A Stone is led by vocalist and composer, Elliott Harvey. As a trans male with invisible disabilities, Harvey has learned that there is often more than what meets initial perception. Inhabiting a body between the thresholds of gender and ability has made him no stranger to liminality, shape shifting, and living between worlds. Consequently, he has developed a devotion to unveiling what exists beyond the easily detectable radar. This practice has carried over into his music, which is often described as ghostly, haunting, and ethereal.

Harvey started performing as a soloist in Philadelphia as a teenage castaway, and since then has expanded his project to include drummers, noise alchemists, and string players into the fold. In 2013, he met violist Myles Donovan (Disemballerina, Negative Queen, Ominous Cloud Ensemble) in Portland, OR. A city-born Philadelphian, the two realized their lives had been intricately intertwined long before meeting, and Donovan swiftly became the core collaborator of A Stick And A Stone. Their partnership has yielded music that is both earthly and transcendental - soundscapes of true intimistic prowess that are crushing and suffocating in their emotional intensity, and mesmerizing in their evocative force. With deep and touching lyrical content channeling themes of alienation, nature worship, mental illness, and disembodiment, and influences ranging from OM, Earth, Amber Asylum, Jarboe and Electric Wizard, to Bloody Panda and Noxagt, A Stick And A Stone brings together sludge-doom, post-rock, minimal folk, and avantgarde to conjure atmospheres of unparalleled beauty, darkness, and intensity. 

On his third full-length album Elliott Harvey and viola player/“album co-conspirator" Myles Donovan explore new sludgy, tumultuous terrain while retaining the signature elements of ethereal harmonies, haunting vocals, and potent lyricism equated with Harvey's previous work. The Long Lost Art of Getting Lost dives into the shadows of this age, upholding the power of resilience amidst times of uncertainty. A Stick And A Stone's unusual style arises from blending paradoxical essences; on this album, gritty bass merges with elegant strings, rugged howls are echoed by graceful whispers, heavy drums are laced with ghostly soundscapes - to materialize in the end an unquestionable modern minimalistic doom masterpiece of our times.

With a release date set to July 21 2017, The Long Lost Art of Getting Lost, will see the light on cassette through Sentient Ruin (US) and Breathe Plastic (EU), while a CD version will surface through Spirit House. A vinyl LP version is also in the works through Sentient Ruin (US), and Cold Recordings (US).  Pre-orders for the casette and digital versions are now live on our Bandcamp and on our store.

Get a first taste of this marvelous and spectral modern doom masterpiece over at CVLT Nation, who are now streaming the track Arrow at this link, calling The Long Lost Art of Getting Lost a "trance-inducing and dream-evoking opus".

UNYIELDING LOVE's "The Sweat of Augury" Finally Available on 12" Vinyl.

After the cassette tape sold out in record time, finally, one of the most monstrous releases of 2016 is now available on 12" 45RPM black wax, and can now be ordered again on our store and on our Bandcamp. 

When Decibel Magazine (click HERE to read their feature) first encountered the scathing and torturous sonic depravity of Northern Ireland's Unyielding Love 's upcoming debut EP The Sweat of Augury they stated in utter amazement that the band “have blasted so hard towards the realm of harsh noise that their song structures are framed around icepick feedback and a layer of pedal abuse that makes it seem like every song they playing is the last they'll manage before their equipment disintegrates”, and then further exclaiming that Unyielding Love are “a goddamn nightmare of grind and discord that may have a few of you shitting teeth”. CVLT Nation later went to to elect The Sweat of Augury as one of te best grindcore releases of 2016.

It comes as no surprise that anyone who is first exposed to this band’s skin-peeling music remains completely baffled and speechless in front of the enormous amount of violence and senseless antagonism that bleeds out of Unyielding Love’s crazed homicidal songs. Birthed in the pits of Belfast, Northern Ireland and seemingly not responding to any laws of any kind in existence in the universe, Unyielding Love create impossible to believe noise-infested blackened grindcore of absolutely boundless and lawless depravity - music that is apparently built with the sole purpose to blind-side, ambush, and slay human ears with an unbelievably torrid and vile blend of lightning-fast grinding hatred and a scathing mauling of harsh-noise insanity. Blending grindcore, black metal, noise and power electronics in a firestorm of abhorrent sonic chaos, Unyielding Love have perfectly bridged the gap between the aesthetics of bands like Full of Hell (for whom the band will open all upcoming UK dates), Column of Heaven, (early) Knelt Rote, Sutekh Hexen, and Gnaw Their Tongues, creating something so heinous and sonically wretched that the human brain will ever only partially be able to fully grasp the full extent of this band’s immeasurable madness and vision.

Today, we're honored to bring you this sonic cataclysm of an album on 45RPM 12" black vinyl - a format which truly embodies the raw and primordial starkness of the band's sound. Vinyl records will thus be available immediately -  in the US through Sentient Ruin, and in the UK/EU through a syndicate of local labels: Feast of Tentacles, Skin & Bones Records, and Vetala Productions.

AMERICAN: Recluse Industrial Black Metal Abusers Unveil Harrowing Sophomore LP - Track Streaming at CVLT Nation.

We’re honored and excited to bring you the second full-length album by recluse industrial black metal/harsh noise abusers american (which the band stylizes lowercase). This is especially a heartfelt release for SR as american were one of the earliest ever bands we worked with back in 2014 (our fourth ever “signing” to be exact), and their debut album we released on cassette - Coping With Loss - was a cornerstone point of no return for us, and probably the first release to make the SR name surface out of complete obscurity, and which first realistically circulated the label’s vision among total strangers for the first time ever. 

Hailing from Richmond, Virgina, american are a mysterious raw black metal/industrial/sludge duo fully committed to the torments and un-comfort of total oblivion and obscurity. No live activity and an existence at the borderline of everything have turned this band into a frightening enigma. Influenced by such revolutionary and genre-defying acts as The Body, Leviathan, Ministry, Skinny Puppy, Craft, Godlflesh, and Blut Aus Nord, american play a blown out, disembodied, torturous and completely fucking annihilated blend of delirious hardcore punk, sludge, black metal, industrial, and noise, creating songs that ooze of almost implausible negativity and bask in ruinous self-destruction. The duo write and record everything at home on their own and have thus far released a frightening debut self-titled demo and a split with the ambient band Crone to which they contributed three tracks. Noticing their diseased and self-destructive craft early on, a then embryonal and completely unknown Sentient Ruin worked with the band in 2014 to release their debut album - Coping With Loss - on cassette, the first ever release for the label to garner any press attention or recognition, and which established the imprint as a credible force. Coping With Loss was a scary and hermetic album which introduced the world to a band being literally devoured by its torments and by its own deviated emotions, and which made listeners gasp in disbelief at the sheer cruelty of the duo’s music, with the likes of Noisey claiming that american’s music “takes you into a world of pain”, and makes you “beg to whoever you believe in to kill you”, CVLT Nation explaining that their music “advocates suicide”, and Invisible Oranges further explaining that their music “is blessed with a haunting aura thick with loathing”.

Building further upon the ill foundations of their castigating and sadistic debut album, american have finally birthed - after three years spent in total seclusion - the inevitable and astonishing nightmare that it their second album. With Violate and Control american have reached a new zenith in musical depravity, and carved an even deeper wound into the American extreme metal underground with their own brand of crazed, sadistic, and raw industrial black metal. Reaching depths of emotional collapse and of musical abuse that barely seem graspable, american’s new creation will leave old fans of the band and new admirers alike horrified by the sheer cruelty reached in this new work, and disgusted by the band’s mindless and lawless evolution into complete and triumphant aural perversion. While their most iconic traits comprised of face-tearing screams, swarming black metal guitars, barbarically obsessive drum machines, and a humiliating barrage of power electronics and pedal abuse remain, with Violate and Control american have also pushed themselves and their wretched craft to often repellant absurds, leaving the listener blindsided and helpless to witness the band literally disembowel their emotions and imagination from within, with a jagged and dull blade made of delirious sonic sadism. Within Violate and Control’s blunt and soulless sonic inhumanity one will find the true distilled essence of self-loathing and of total sensorial mutilation, embodied as ten tracks of absolutely magnificent sonic abhorrence that hideously bring together the abyssal darkness of black metal bands like Leviathan and Ash Borer, the earth-shaking noise abuse of Bastard Noise and The Body, and the glacial magnificence of blackened noise sound sculptors like Sutekh Hexen, Locrian, and Wold.

CVLT Nation is now streaming the first track extrapolated from this visionary and wretched work - check out the noise-infested black metal delirium of Amorous and Subdued HERE.

Featuring disturbingly beautiful art made for the band by abstract collage visionary øjeRum, Violate and Control will see the light on June 30 2017 as LP/Cassette/Digital through Sentient Ruin in partnership with Fragile Branch Recordings (also US LP/Cassette) and Shove (EU LP) - pre-orders are now live on our Bandcamp, or store.

SHOW OF BEDLAM: Canadian Avant-doom Destroyers Unveil Mind-crushing Second Album - Track Streaming at CVLT Nation.

It is with immense pleasure that we announce our partnership with one of experimental metal's most promising and visionary underground acts currently in activity today. Montreal, Quebec's Show of Bedlam are about to gift humanity with an unforgettable onslaught of visionary avant-garde doom metal destruction, incarnated as their mind-crushing second full-length album titled Transfiguration.

Named after the infamous St. Mary of Bethlehem insane asylum in London, and Hailing from Montreal, Quebec, Canada, Show of Bedlam are one of those bands that become instantly recognizable upon first listen, and which are an auditive experience that even the most distracted or demanding listeners will not be able to overlook and will deem simply unforgettable. Like your worst nightmares and the scathing visions of insanity they try to evoke with their music, this band's songs nest inside your head like an unhinged fear or a repellant constant phobia, never to leave ever again. Show of Bedlam craft songs that dig and ravage deep within your subconscious, unearthing your most deviated and repressed emotions, crushing you under the weight of an inhuman barrage of angular and discordant riffs, and causing a massive sensorial surge within the deepest crevices of your soul that will make you rattle in fear and shake you to the core.

Creating an ominous, psychotic, and crazed blend of doom metal, sludge, noise rock, post-punk, no-wave, goth, and industrial, Show of Bedlam have stitched together a sonic palette of unbelievable evocative force and of sublime destructive prowess. With an insane and sprawling plethora of musical influences ranging from Swans, Godflesh, Sonic Youth, Babes in Toyland, Lydia Lunch, Melvins, and Burning Witch, to Zeni Geva, Butthole Surfers, Christian Death, The Cure, Bauhaus, Neurosis and beyond, and with cryptic and harrowing  lyrics dealing with subject matter related to mental illness, hospitals, shame, alienation, and mankind’s fate, Show of Bedlam have birthed something monstrous and unforgiving that is at times beautiful, at times hideously ugly, delicate, intimate and terribly wretched at the same time.

CVLT Nation is now premiering the first track extrapolated from the release - the annihilating Tælus and the feature and stream can be checked out HERE.

To be released on May 12 2017 on cassette, digital and 12" LP, Transfiguration takes form as a mind-crushing avantgarde doom metal monster in which the torments of madness, alienation, and mental disease coalesce into a devouring implosion of collapsing emotions and suffocating sonic obliteration. A true experimental doom colossus form for fans of Anatomy of Habit, Indian, Lord Mantis, Swans, Bodychoke, Diamanda Galas, Made Out of Babies, Battle of Mice, and mid-career Neurosis.

Transfiguration US pre-orders for tape, LP and digital are now live on our Bandcamp and store, and will be released in collaboration with Dawnbreed Records (EU vinyl and tape), Desordre Ordonee (CA vinyl), and PRC music (CD worldwide)