GLOAM
Santa Cruz CA’s Gloam have been their hometown’s most revered and iconic black metal act for nearly ten years. They first emerged playing blackened doom on their 2012 debut demo tape and soon morphed into a hideous black metal specter, as seen on all their subsequent releases thereafter. While their sophomore 2014 cassette EP Vanquished released by Oregon extreme metal dealers Eternal Warfare still maintained traits of doomy atmospheres and looming despair, it already vehemently lunged forth hideous black metal tentacles which became a clear presage on what was to (be)come. But it was their following massive Hex of Nine Heads debut album released by Gilead Media on 2XLP and by Caligari Records on cassette which first earned them widespread acclaim and made the band’s pure black metal flame come into full circle burning brighter than ever completing the band’s metamorphosis into the sworn to darkness entity it had always been destined to become. As the band perfected its black metal sound and aesthetic over the years it shaped into the true self it had always been meant to be, and earned widespread recognition from labels and specialized press alike, being hailed on numerous occasions and by many outlets as one of USBM’s most exciting and groundbreaking prospects, a journey which culminated with a savage performance at the second edition of Vancouver BC’s revered and iconic extreme metal gathering Covenant Festival, a stage that the band shared with the likes of Blasphemy, Antichrist, and Incantation. Around the same time the band followed up to their debut album with the Death Is the Beginning EP, as well as with a split with Peruvian black metal barbarians Obscure Evil, both released by Swedish extreme metal bastion Blood Harvest Records. Following their EP releases and appearance at Covenant, Gloam regrouped at in their hometown taking a break from touring to compose their side of Boundless Arcane Invokations, their imposing 12” split with San Jose CA black metal destroyers Black Fucking Cancer. On the visionary collaborative piece of American black metal set to be released on vinyl in the second half of 2019 by Sentient Ruin, the two bands envisioned the work as a single continuous and circular piece connected at both ends, with the same title for the album and for their two respective tracks as well, where the two bands trade places in taking the composition from start to finish and then dissolve the two ends as well, coercing their two creations into a cyclical and looped spell of vast, glorious, and unholy USBM pandemonium.