VOID ROT: US Death-Doom Titans Ready Release of Immense Debut Album "Descending Pillars" - Tracks and Pre-Orders Available.

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Sentient Ruin is proud to work again with Minnesota death-doom titans VOID ROT as we ready the impending release of their colossal debut LP “Descending Pillars” in collaboration once again with Everlasting Spew Records on September 3 2020.

Recorded and mixed by Adam Tucker at Signaturetone Recording, mastered by Damian Herring at Subterranean Watchtower Studios and featuring cover artwork by Timo Ketola (Deathspell Omega, Dead Congregation) and additional artwork by Misanthropic Art (Diabolic Oath, Malthusian, Convocation, Maryland Deathfest and more), “Descending Pillars” consecrates Void Rot as one of America’s most promising and definitive new death-doom bands.

Boasting a colossal sound, "Descending Pillars", is an imposing sonic monolith of obsidian slow death metal and dismal atmospherics that encases the listener into a monstrous sarcophagus of sound. In its immense forty minutes the album conjures visions of otherworldly finality and of absurd forms of death and demise taking shape at the edge of a formless and implacable dark cosmos. With influences ranging from Grave, to Disembowelment, Incantation and Bolt Thrower, on "Descending Pillars" the Minnesota quartet re-establishes itself as visionary new act with an unparalleled sound and aesthetic of dismally towering proportions, cementing their reputation as one of contemporary death-doom's most promising and visionary prospects along the ranks of entities like Krypts, Spectral Voice, and Vastum.

You can now whiteness two immense tracks taken from the album - the opening title track and track # 3 “Liminal Forms“ - over at our Bandcamp. In premiering the latter song, Toilet Ov Hell elaborated that “Void Rot’s dense oppressive cosmic-churn has been amplified in every facet of their music.” - you can check out their feature HERE.

Hailing from Minneapolis MN, Void Rot began their journey devoted to constructing massive and soul-consuming dirges of monstrous death-doom around 2017, mainly influenced by the glorious progenitors of majestic, atmospheric, and slow moving death metal like Winter, Rippikoulu, Disembowelment, early Paradise Lost, Incantation, etc. Within their imposing early compositions Void Rot weaved light and darkness seamlessly and with unseen mastery, releasing ample premonitions of the immensity to come and evoking atmospheres of unparalleled vastness that alternated majestically between sidereal and contemplative psychedelia, and visceral and bludgeoning heaviness. Their towering debut EP Consumed by Oblivion released in 2018 by Sentient Ruin and Everlasting Spew featured artwork by surreal darkness luminary Stephen Wilson and was an iconic and proud example of true American death-doom as seen at its finest hour, masterfully distilling the void of space and the loneliness of the cosmos and bending them to collide with the crushing misery of our earthly reality. The end result: a seismic monolith of spine-breaking riffs and warped atmospheres that while glorifying death-doom's most distintive traits also elevated the genere to an entire new level. With “Descending Pillars” their otherworldly spell is cast again, ascending to apocalyptic proportions and consecrating Void Rot as absolutely protagonists in the finest hour of contemporary American death-doom.

DECOHERENCE: UK Ambient/Industrial Black Metal Entity Prepare Release of Sophomore LP "Unitarity" - Track and Pre-Orders Posted.

We’re honored to work again with DECOHERENCE as they open another remarkable chapter in their still short-lived history and continue their enigmatic and triumphant march into complete black metal defiance and transformation. Their immense sophomore LP “Unitarity” is scheduled for an August 14 2020 release and shows yet another marked evolution in their artistic trajectory, unveiling a higher order of craftsmanship while also venturing deeper into even more abstract and transformative realms of sonic annihilation.

“Unitarity” can now be preordered from our shop and Bandcamp where the track “Remnants” is streamable. The album will be released in digital format as well as on a limited clear red vinyl edition limited to 100 copies, on standard black vinyl, and on cassette tape.

"Unitarity" sees Decoherence once again exploring through sound realms of the incomprehensible that lie far beyond human existence and understanding, in remote and alien corners of the cosmos were unimaginable cataclysms, and creation/destruction events of harrowing apocalyptic proportions dominate an immense lifeless void where light is cyclically and eternally torn and devoured. Figuratively placed at the center of this alien and incomprehensible plane of existence lies the music of Decoherence, an hallucinogenic architectural distortion of shapeshifting dark matter in which cold industrial tapestries, surreal and alien atmospheres and walls of mangled guitars and oppressive electronics design the erratic and twisting trajectories of the universe's most hidden and ungraspable abominations.

Decoherence formed around 2018 by the will of unknown UK solo musician Stroda who writes, records and mixes all the band’s music, and who’d also made a name for himself in the undeground around then for posting online tens of enigmatic but highly crafted self-released instrumental demos under his own alias before joining forces with US-based vocalist Tahazu and creating the self-titled Decoherence debut 7”, released in 2019 by Sentient Ruin to overwhelmingly positive reviews. The duo then added Prior to fold, a third member handling noise and electronics for the band, an addition which vastly enhanced their sound and sonically pushed the band into a more unpredictable and dismal direction. The result was the immense debut LP “Ekpyrosis”, released the same year to even more overwhelmingly positive feedback. Now, the time has come for “Unitarity", Decoherence’s most towering, annihilating and immense album yet…

NITE: San Francisco Dark Heavy Metal Titans Issue Grandiose Early 2020 Debut Album "Darkness Silence Mirror Flame" On Cassette Via Sentient Ruin.

We’re honored to welcome SF CA dark heavy metal titans NITE into our fold, as they’ve tasked Sentient Ruin with issuing their mesmerizing debut album “Darkness Silence Mirror Flame” on cassette tape format after the debut full-length effort was already officially released via digital, CD and vinyl formats back in March 2020 via Bay Area label Creator Destructor.

“Darkness Silence Mirror Flame” is a modern heavy metal masterpiece which was just as unexpected as unprecedented when it first appeared earlier this year and which has since been on heavy rotation here at SR HQ, going on to become one of our favorite albums of the year. How could we go without being involved in such a work of art by a fantastic local band from just across the Bay? We could not, and this is why a first ever tape release of this stunning and magical record is about to see the light, scheduled for a July 31 2020 release via Sentient Ruin.

“Darkness Silence Mirror Flame" is forty-six minutes of timeless and ass-kicking blackened classic heavy metal thunder that masterfully sublimates the archetypical greatness of forefathers like Judas Priest, Scorpions, Thin Lizzy, Dio and Maiden into the dark and malevolent enormity of heavy innovators like Amebix, Celtic Frost and Hellhammer. Packed with razor sharp riffs, blazing leads, thundering bass and pounding drums, on the striking debut album Nite distill the purest essence of 70's primordial heavy metal and of 80s NWOBHM, and combine it with malevolent black metal vocals, dark lyrics, and crepuscular occult atmospheres to bring a new dark meaning and dimension to the classic and ancestral heavy metal flame.

Recorded, mixed, and mastered by the band itself, the striking album will see the light via Sentient Ruin as a limited and exclusive physical analog fetish with silkscreened slipcase, massive landscape j-card, and download card, and will feature the album’s signature cover art by iconic American occult visual artist Misanthropic-Art illustrations (Diabolic Oath) - pre-order it now from our shop or Bandcamp.

Nite was formed in San Francisco CA in 2018 by Van Labrakis (Satan’s Wrath, Mencea), Scott Hoffman (Dawnbringer, High Spirits), Bryan Coons (Older Sun, Motorhome) and Pat Crawford (Serpents of Dawn, Older Sun). Unapologetically classic yet aesthetically and stylistically transformative, the band delivers traditional heavy metal mastery heavily influenced by the NWOBM and the heavy metal titans of the 70s and 80s (early Judas Priest, Thin Lizzy, Scoprions, etc.) paired with blackened malevolent vocals reminiscent of Amebix and Hellhammer, a fusion of elements which has resulted in an epic, majestic, yet spectral and malevolent sound. Their highly original syncretism of different ancestral ingredients of heavy metal brings us back to a golden age of the genre when when razor sharp guitars, blazing leads, earth shattering bass and pounding drums were already a long established pillar of the style, being first faced with the rise of evil growled vocals of bands like Venom and Possessed without ever actually meeting, a communion which Nite accomplished forty years later with masterful effect to unfold their own personal sonic storytelling of horror, darkness and despair. Nite’s debut album "Darkness Silence Mirror Flame" was released on Vinyl, CD and streaming from Creator-Destructor Records in March 2020 to critical acclaim, and re-issued on cassette tape via Sentient Ruin on July 31 2020.

DEADLIGHT SANCTUARY: Norwegian Abhorrent Black/Doom Metal Entity to Issue Debut LP "Thaumaturgical Rites of the Damned" - Track Premiered at Last Rites.

We’re honored to welcome Norwegian Abhorrent Black/Doom Metal Entity Deadlight Sanctuary to our fold as we ready the release of the band’s debut album "Thaumaturgical Rites of the Damned" on cassette and LP in collaboration with Iron Bonehead Productions for Europe, scheduled for an official street/ship date of July 24 2020. Vinyl and cassettes of the rotten slab of pestilent extreme metal are now available for pre-order on our store and Bandcamp or via IBHP for EU customers.

Deadlight Sanctuary is a solo project of G., notorious for being one of the ghouls behind Norwegian black/death/war metal terrorists Goatkraft. In Deadlight Sanctuary G. has however steered his attention toward the more ritualistic, contemplative and esoteric fringes of black metal, seeking out instead the perverse, morbose, doomed and decadent moods and atmospheres we've seen in bands like Beherit and most recently in Demoncy, a couple of G.'s long running musical inspirations. The end result became "Thaumaturgical Rites of the Damned", G's debut solo album under the Deadlight Sanctuary moniker, a lone descent by the Norwegian musician into a sonic underworld of esoteric necromantic perversions and decaying sepulchers drenched with the stench of death. Steeping in deviancy and decadence, "Thaumaturgical Rites of the Damned" is an exercise in sonic disgust, defilement, and abandon, in which black metal has embraced doom and the most decaying realms of inverted filth-worship, giving way to doomy rhythms and tempos that have masterfully re-evoked the tank-linke stylistic resemblances of early Demoncy, along with the disgusting, evil, and lurid atmospheres we've seen spew forth by Beherit in their now legendary "Drawing Down the Moon" album.

In a lengthily in-depth introduction to the release and exclusive premiere of the album’s namesake track, extreme metal blog Last Rites comments that “Deadlight Sanctuary invokes tortured, hateful aggression and channels it into an offering of pure, unbridled worship in one of the most evil-sounding subsets of metal’s most reviled subgenre.“ - you can check out the track and their feature HERE.

The idea for Deadlight Sanctuary matured a few years ago, but didn’t seriously begin to take shape until recently. The plan for G. was to create slow, heavy, and dark music with gloomy whispering vocals and primitive decaying atmospheres, lyrically and conceptually going down a perverted path of occultism and necromancy. Until mid 2018 the project was only an unfulfilled concept. The process of transforming it into reality began to crystalize around the end of 2018. Inspired for many years of absorbing the dark force and legacies of Demoncy and Beherit, G. started to arrange the first riffs that would eventually become the title song and namesake of the project - “Deadlight Sanctuary”.

During the next months more songs were created until the bulk of the debut album "Thaumaturgical Rites of the Damned" began to fully take shape as a cohesive creation. The album was eventually recorded in June of 2019. Soon after, a cooperation between G. and Sentient Ruin Labolatories was established and then Goatkraft’s original label Iron Bonehead Productions also came into the picture to handle a Eurpean release of the debut album on physical formats slated for July 24 2020, adorned by glorious artwork delivered to the band by BMS Illustration from Caracas, Venezuela (Cthonica, Tetragrammacide etc.).

PURO ODIO: Degenerate Nihilistic Punk Commando Seal Blood Pact with Sentient Ruin - Reissues and New Music Planned, 2019 EP Available Physically for the First Time In North America.

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Basque degenerate nihilistic punk commando PURO ODIO get in league with Sentient Ruin to bring their hateful punk plague to North America for the first time ever. A meticulous reissue plan is underway and their 2019 two-song EP is already available for stream and pre-order on cassette tape via our shop and Bandcamp, officially releasing/shipping on July 10 2020. Their glorious 2018 debut demo is also planned for reissue on a limited edition etched 10” (details TBA), while new music will also surface from the band via yours truly next year.

Dubbed "La banda mas dura del planeta" by their inner circle and hailing from the Basque region in the north of Spain, Puro Odio are purveyors of a degenerate world that has lost its sanity and fallen to complete barbarism, anarchy, chaos and inhumanity, succumbing to a bleak new world order where any virtue or morality is crushed under the iron fist of hatred, violence and nihilism. A senseless exaltation of crime, terrorism and of mankind’s most repulsive side, their sophomore two-song EP originally self released on vinyl 7" in 2019 is a bastard punk ritual of absolute disgust and nihilism where the crudest and most antagonist history of early American hardcore punk, as well as the British old-school of anarcho-punk, Oi! and d-beat is hijacked to serve the complete suppression of virtue and foment the abject glorification of total darkness and negativity. Within its primordial and deranged stylistic framework you will hear the iconic sounds of American legends like Cruficix and Void, as well as of British bastions of filthy punk like Broken Bones, English Dogs, GBH, Discharge, and Conflict all collide with the darkest and most unnameable horrors of reality - subtlety channeled by the ancestral malevolence heard in early punk black metal entities like GISM, Von and Hellhammer. The ensuing style and overall sound is thus describable as the sonic idealization of a reign of terror, with hateful blackened vocals barking atrocities and primitive pummeling d-beat drumming driving a demented and derailing meat grinder of abrasive guitars to shape a raw and repulsive hardcore punk dystopia vomited from the slums and gutters of hell, soaked in darkness, blood, and cruelty. A degenerate crossway of sorts between the abjection and primitivism of hardcore punk bands like Gag and Glue, and the malefic misanthropy of blackened punk bands like Bone Awl, Ritual Knife, and Grinning Death's Head.

With the two individuals masked and anonymous, Puro Odio officially debuted in 2018 with a self-titled six-song demo tape with striking visuals that immediately introduced them as an accomplished and fully-defined audio-visual aberration entirely their own, shaped by an aesthetic coming from BDSM, crime, modern art, perverted fiction, and the wretched insurrectionism of early American hardcore, British anarcho/d-beat filth, and the malefic abnegation of early raw and punky black metal. A year later in 2019 an equally deranged self-released self-titled two-song 7" appeared (now reissued on tape by Sentient Ruin), while the original demo received a vinyl release in early 2020 via Spanish Oi! Punk label Mendeku Diskak and will be reissued on a different vinyl format and with different artwork also by Sentient Ruin in North America). Stay tuned for more coming from Puro Odio and Sentient Ruin soon!

DIABOLIC OATH: US Black/Death Metal Tormentors Unveil Inhumanly Crushing Debut LP - Track Premiered at Metal Injection.

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Sentient Ruin is proud to welcome Portland OR black/death metal tormentors Diabolic Oath to its fold, via the imminent official release of the band’s harrowing debut LP “Profane Death Exodus”, coming on LP, limited edition cassette tape with silkscreened slipcase, and digital formats on June 26th 2020 (all now pre-ordeable on our Bandcamp and shop). A limited edition CD version will be released via undeground mexican label Craneo Negro.

Metal Injection has unveiled the first track extrapolated from the cataclysmic LP, exclusively streaming the track “Opening the Gates to Blasphemic Domination” and remarking that “The five-minute offering is the first taste of the band's full-length record and a remarkable barometer for the evil the band constructs throughout the record.” - you can check out the feature and listen to the track HERE.

On the soul-crushing debut album the black/death/war metal plague-wielders unleash complete hell on earth, unravelling one of the most unnerving and annihilating displays of sonic tyranny to have been vomited out of the West Coast of the United States in recent times. While the influences drawn from bands like Teitanblood, Immolation, and Bestial Warlust help trace a profile, the album remains an enigmatic abhorrence quite hard to fully define or categorize, with its colossal yield of destruction shaped primarily through an unorthodox mastery of the fretless guitar and bass accompanied by a triple and often simultaneous vocal attack, an unusual and free-form approach to the black/death craft which has resulted in an album of almost otherworldly destructive traits.

Standing out as a peculiar defining trait are also the album's noticeably decreased tempos and dismal atmospherics which stem from the band's veneration of extreme doom, which, opposed to the intensity and brutality of the execution unmistakably descend from the most violent fringes of war metal, has resulted in an overall sound with tank-like resemblances, colossal and imposing in the form but unrelenting and perpetually perpetrating destruction in the deliverance. Further defining Diabolic Oath's darkened aural cataclysm is the wide array of aberrant philosophical and spiritual projections which permeate the music and become one with it, surfacing via the lyrics and aesthetic to shape a deeply mystical and esoteric abyss of abhorrent inverted transcendence. This juxtaposition of complete sonic cruelty and morbid ritualistic esotericism has made of "Profane Death Exodus" a profoundly transcendental ritual of indissoluble ruin and symbolism that will stand high as one of the most enigmatic and diabolical displays of supernatural sonic terror to be released all year.

CONVOCATION: Finnish Funeral Doom Titans Unveil Colossal Sophomore LP "Ashes Coalesce" - Track Premiered at Toiled Ov Hell.

Iconic Finnish duo Convocation join the Sentient Ruin family to release their staggering sophomore LP "Ashes Coalesce" on vinyl in North America, a colossal dirge of soul-crushing funeral/death doom standing high as one of the most accomplished expressions in the genre this year. The titanic opus is set to be released on July 3 2020 (now pre-ordeable from our store and Bancamp), while a CD, EU vinyl and digital version will come via Everlasting Spew Records, while a tape version will be issued later on by Dawnbreed Records.

Toilet Ov Hell has premiered the track “The Absence of Grief” from the release, stating that “‘Ashes Coalesce’ is comprised of four enormous tracks, each offering a unique atmosphere imbued with all manner of melancholic melody, malevolent murk, and monstrous moods. The exact kind of feeling you want from your funeral doom“ - you can checkout their feature and listen to the track HERE.

The LP will be available in two versions: a limited edition black/oxblood vinyl in vinyl effect + bone white splatter available in only 40 copies for the US or as standard black vinyl.

"Ashes Coalesce” is a monumental sonic devourment where slow-moving atmospheric death metal and void-sculpting extreme doom collide to signal the onset of oblivion and resound one of the most lightless and soul-consuming expressions of sonic abandon the genre has seen in the latter part of this decade. Like a massive maelstrom slowly circling a lightless void, the colossal album assumes form through a slow-moving morass of telluric drums, crushing guitars and bass, and guttural spectral vocals emanating from beyond a veil, that suck all light out of their surroundings and slowly encircle the listener immersing them into a suffocating abyss of levitating agony and inescapable hopelessness. Within the churning mass of oppressive distortion and hallucinogenic soundscapes lies a connective tissue of strings, synths, organs, and orchestrations that thread the listener's demise as the suffocating atmospheres condense and crawl to a climax, assuming a sense of inescapability and multidimensionality that ultimately surround and crush the listener into forty minutes of awe-inducing sonic immensity that deceive thee senses and defy logic.

The duo formed in Helsinki Finland in 2013, uniting vocalist MN from local doom metal ritualists Dark Buddha Rising , and multi instrumentalist LL from death metal tormentors Desolate Shrine, and immediately established themselves as one of the most intriguing new entities in death doom and funeral doom thanks for their debut Album "Scars Across", released in 2018 by Italy's Everlasting Spew Records, a colossal opus of churning and slow-moving extreme metal darkness and dismal atmospherics that elevated the duo as one of the genre's most exiting and transformative new entities.

DEARTH: Oakland CA Black/Death Harbingers Unveil Devastating Debut Album "To Crown All Befoulment" - Track Premiered at Decibel Magazine.

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We’re proud and absolutely ecstatic to partake in the official and unforgettable birth of Oakland black/death metal plague wielders Dearth, local dearest friends of this label who’ve been a cornerstone and bastion band of the Bay Area extreme metal underground for many years. After the band has spent the last couple years of its existence diligently crafting what will soon become their introduction to the world, we can finally unveil their long awaited and highly anticipated first full-length album "To Crown All Befoulment", a sonic reign of terror clawing deep into the most wretched, abominable, and hideous realms of human nature. The hideous monster of an album is scheduled for a June 19 2020 release on vinyl, digital and tape, and will surely be one of the most intimating and uncompromising displays of aural terror to see the light all year.

Decibel Magazine has been kind enough to give and introduction to the pandemonium to come via an exclusive stream of the track “Death Sown In Polluted Soil”, commenting that “Dearth lull you into a false sense of security on ‘Death Sown in Polluted Soil’, or at least its opening. It’s ominous but not directly threatening until the strings bend and the latter portion of their black/death cocktail explodes.“ - you can check out their feature and the track HERE.

Nihilistic beyond comprehension and sonically devastating, on the crushing debut LP Dearth explore incomprehensible thresholds of disgust and abjection through a sonic arsenal f“ - you can check out their feature and the track HERE.

Nihilistic beyond comprehension and sonically devastating, on the crushing debut LP Dearth explore incomprehensible thresholds of disgust and abjection through a sonic arsenal forged deep into in the most tormented circles of hell, unleashing a cataclysm of dark death metal horror that will leave the listener scarred and ravaged. Thorough an inescapable maze of oppressive death metal riffs and malefic atmospheres, the Oakland death-bringers have drawn influence from extreme metal titans like Dead Congregation, Deathspell Omega, Lucifyre, Demoncy, and Peseudogod to assemble a mortal weapon of mass extermination that symbolizes and glorifies the complete and implacable eradication of humanity in its every form and manifestation.

Oakland’s Dearth appeared in the Bay Area’s extreme metal undreground around 2016, coalescing around members from local extreme metal deviants like Xenotaph, Torture Chamber, Dead Man, Swamp Witch, and Funeral Chant who wanted to explore an abominable syncretism between the ugliness and surrealism of French black metal, the power and chaos of the darkest strains of death metal, and conceptual lyricism and symbolism dealing with transcendental misanthropy, metaphysical nihilism and total inhumanity. The band debuted in 2017 with a debut tape EP released by Transylvanian Tapes which already put on full display their monstrous sound made of a cascading wall of bludgeoning death metal riffs draped in malefic and sickening black atmospheres borrowed directly from the fringe outer limits of the most tortured french black metal. Following their debut tape release the band lay mostly dormant playing locally only sporadicly and hammering away at what would become “To Crown All Befoulment”, their monstrous 2020 debut album for Sentient Ruin. With a sound both reminiscent of dark death metal monsters like Dead Congregation, Lucifyre, and Pseudogod, and of extreme black metal entities like Deadthspell Omega, Aosoth, and Anteus, with To Crown All Befoulment Dearth have levitated from the depths of hell and spread the enormous wings of a sonic holocaust of unseen dread and destructiveness, claiming their rightful place at the very center of contemporary blackened death metal transformation, and adding their own inestimable touch to a transformative and ever changing syncretism of styles which is in constant motion and evolution.

You can now pre-order digital, tape and vinyl products of To Crown All Befoulment via our shop and Bandcamp.