DSKNT: Dismal Swiss Black Metal Entity Readies Debut Album - Track Unveiled at CVLT Nation.

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We are proud and honored to announce the release of PhSPHR Entropy - the debut album of mysterious Swiss black metal monstrosity DSKNT.

Hailing from Switzerland this mysterious polymorphic black metal enigma is a presumed one man operation dedicated to unearthing the most hidden and unnameable realms of sonic oppression. DSKNT is a vessel for the sole assumed mastermind of the project to conjure visions of unparalleled wretchedness, and to summon a sonic horror that barely seems graspable such its scope and depth. DSKNT is presumably the sole work of one Sinnhir, a swiss extreme metal luminary who is also thought to be involved with other Swiss extreme meal bands like Antiversum, AION, Necrosemen, and probally various others. Like most projects of this nature, there is little or almost no information about DSKNT, and Sentient Ruin was unable to confirm any other details regarding the nature and identity of the project.

PhSPHR Entropy is DSKNT's debut offering: a hermetic, polymorphic and abstract black metal nightmare exclusively glorifying and worshiping the annihilation of all existence - a colossal debut album of total avant-black mindfuckery that has taken the aesthetic of bands like Aosoth, Abigor, Deathspell Omega, and Anthaeus and deformed it and disfigured it further - creating a swarming chasm of mutated black chaos worship that pulverizes the psyche and ravages the flesh.

CVLT Nation is now exclusively streaming the track Resurgence of Primordial Void Aperture - calling DSKNT's offering an "absolutely insane debut album - complete disintegration of the soul". You can check out the song and their feature HERE

Coming on cassette through Sentient Ruin on December 4 2017, on CD through Italian extreme metal label Clavi Secretorum, and then in early 2018 on vinyl again through Sentient Ruin in the US and Babylon Doom Cult Records in the EU - PhSPHR Entropy is already slated to become one of the greatest black metal releases of the year.

2018's vinyl edition will see the album released in two different color configurations: a limited black vinyl run, along with a standard edition LP pressed on clear vinyl with a black haze. All formats can now be pre-ordered on our store or Bandcamp.

MALEFIC LEVITATION: Californian Black/Death Duo Unveil Obliterating Debut EP - Track Streaming at CVLT Nation.

Sentient Ruin is honored to bring you The Ancient Plague, the debut EP/demo tape by Californian black/death duo Malefic Levitation. Formed in 2016, and hailing from Fresno, CA, Malefic Levitation's debut is an incinerating onslaught of bestial and pestilent war metal that is shockingly savage and unremittingly barbaric as it unfolds its malevolent spires upon the listener. Bringing together the structurally imploding and collapsing chaos of black/death stalwarts like Revenge, Archgoat, and Diocletian, and the most vile forms of grindcore, Malefic Levitation have created an instant classic in the realm of the most overwhelmingly violent strains of extreme metal, and birthed a sonic abomination whose feral ferocity is matched solely by its unforgiving cruelty. 

Today CVLT Nation premiered the first track from the work titled Savage Hunter - calling The Ancient Plague "twenty minutes of inconceivably deranged and fucking barbaric black/death metal". You can check out their feature HERE.

While bands like Bathory, Morbid Angel, Mayhem, Blasphemy, Beherit, etc. where a no brainier guiding light for the newborn duo, the two also wanted to push the genre of blackened death metal into uncharted waters, and create something unique that could harness a new realm of musical pestilence rarely seen or attempted before. The result was their Warlord Rites single, self-recorded and self-released digitally by the band on Bandcamp only. This track showcased Malefic Levitation's blossoming hunholy grip on total aural destruction perfectly, revealing a style of songwriting that set them instantly aside from their peers in the so called "war metal" genre. The duo had in fact birthed a five-plus minute behemoth of sublime black/death wretchedness that revealed a band who was fearless and completely at ease in expressing their most progressive and technical side.

Shortly after the band entered the studio with local engineer Jacob Lee (Keeper, Fiend etc.) to record their proper and complete debut offering: the unholy and godless omnipotent black/death chaos of The Ancient Plague - which will be released on cassette by Sentient Ruin in the US, and by Dawnebreed Records in the EU on November 2017. 

The two releases are different, with the art for the US tape printed with black offset ink on red heavy cardstock, and the EU art printed with silver ink on black heavy cardstock. Both versions can be now pre-ordered on our store or Bandcamp.

CALQUES: Alabama Deviant Raw Black Noise Duo Debut With "Civilizing" - Track Streaming at CVLT Nation

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Formed by members of raw punk pedal abusing miscreants Hadals and Japanese Women, and gravitating around the world of cult underground tape label Tapes Of A Neon god (RIP), Calques is an industrial/noise/punk/raw black metal band formed in 2016 in Montgomery, Alabama. Begotten within the crushing mental oppression of a decaying southern town, Calques decided to embrace what they most despised and use it as a weapon to summon total aural war and to face their most crushing miseries. Playing lo-fi black metal filtered through lurid and demented noise rock riffs and a vile shroud of harsh noise, Calques’ music is the sound of failure and of outcasts - of the deprived pushed into the red and their torment then channeled through the cheapest recording devices possible with the worst instruments available.

Within this hell-ridden framework of audial disembodiment, Calques have birthed their debut EP Civilizing - taking the lacerating approach to raw black metal of bands like Ildjarn and Bone Awl, and making it collide against the abrasive and nerve-wrecking raw punk of bands like Raw Nerve and Cult Ritual, and the noisy pedal and knob abuse of deviants like Gnaw Their Tongues and Sutekh Hexen, and finally, choking out everything in a mangled and sanguine strangulation of completely collapsing and self-harming noise rock deviancy.

Calques’ music is the sound of trying to bypass self reflection and failing, of hissing static, and of deviant punk riffs with no glory, no posturing or sleek production anywhere in sight, and with no grandiose atmospheric melodies even hinted at. All you get from Calques is the misery and oppression, the shortcomings, the failures, the ugliness, and the unappealing blight of the southern reality vomited on you through a swarm of shattered glass, mangled nerves, and razor wire.

CALQUES
Civilizing

1. Periurbanization
2. Exurbanisation
3. Galvanization
4. Conversation
5. Decomposition

CVLT Nation have now unveiled Galvanization - the first lacerating track taken from Calques' vile debut EP - stating that it is "a work of staggering ugliness and of completely repugnant hostility". You can listen to the track and read the feature HERE.

Civilizing drops as a limited edition cassette tape + digital product on October 13 2017 - you can now pre-order it on our store or Bandcamp.

PETRIFICATION: Old School Death Metal Butchers Release "Summon Horrendous Destruction" on 7" Vinyl.

We have just released the 7" vinyl version of Portland OR-based death metal butchers Petrification's debut demo Summon Horrendous Destruction. This devastating demo was first released on tape last March, with the two pressings that were done selling out in record time and these cassettes becoming an instant collector's item. The original tape pressing received widespread acclaim with many top metal publications like Decibel Magazine and Metal Injection praising the band's reckless and original approach to super destructive old school death metal. CVLT Nation has called Summon Horrendous Destruction a “glorious slab of putrefying sonic death” and a “gore-obsessed frenzy of decaying sonic rot and of punishing death metal chaos”. Petrification’s old school death metal trudge truly is a gruesome thing to behold - their music batters the flesh and smashes bone with the cruelty of an orc unleashed from hell, and their debut demo Summon Horrendous Destruction is a glorious onslaught of mummified and gross as fuck old school death metal that will delight fans of Autopsy, Nihilist, Grave, Cruciamentum, Disma etc.

Petrification was formed in 2014 by Tom Roberts aka WarVest after moving from Houston to Portland, OR following his departure from the band WarMaster. Arriving with the intention to start a new Death Metal outfit more evil and heavy than anything he had done before, he would later run into Mario Thunder at a show, whom had also moved from Texas with the plan of playing extreme and fucked up Metal. Early practices began in NE Portland and shortly after Jason, who had relocated with Mario from Dallas, joined as vocalist. Wanting to add a second guitarist, the band tried out several people and after a few failed auditions finally recruited fellow Texan David to helm the strings. One last change in the lineup would occur with the departure of bassist Tyler Wolfe, his replacement Portland native Nukes would solidify the demo-lineup. 

Petrification formed out of their love of Old School Swedish, British and particularly Finnish Death Metal, wanting to create music that while an homage to its roots, allowed its members to find their own unique voice in Extreme Metal. Drawn to the evil and doom-laden soundscapes of the Finnish Masters, Petrification set out to meticulously craft their own vision in the writing of the demo Summon Horrendous Destruction, lyrically and sonically conjuring apparitions of giant, man-eating Arachnids and other horrors that lurk on the edge of the Void awaiting their victims.

PETRIFICATION
Summon Horrendous Destruction

1. Summon Horrendous Destruction
2. Stagnation of Transmigration view
3. The Headless One view
4. Desecrators of Conscious Entropy

The Summon Horrendous Destruction vinyl 7" (which comes as a standard red or limited black 7" with amazing artwork done by Petrification singer and renewed graphic artist Jason Barnett) is a corelease between SR and To The Death Records (EU), and is available for order immediately through our store and Bandcamp and already shipping worldwide. 

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LEUCOSIS: Mysterious Californian Black Metal Unit Unveil New Album - Track Streaming at CVLT Nation.

We're honored and excited to present you the triumphant reawakening of one of California's most obscure and best kept secrets. 

Hailing from Santa Cruz, California, Leucosis formed when founding guitarist/vocalist J.L. joined forces with drummer J.W. and the duo began working with a revolving door of live and studio contributors. Heavily influenced by iconic experimental black metal bands like Darkspace, Weakling, Leviathan, and early Ulver, Leucosis’ early incarnation soon started to coalesce like dark matter encircling a famished black hole, fueled by visions of rebirth through the ashes of mankind’s collapse and by an inescapable pull toward the complete annihilation of every atom within the human sphere of existence. In the following months two imposing and visionary full-lengths were self-recorded and released by the band (the debut album Pulling Down the Sky and the monstrous an now iconic self-titled LP), along with a massive two song-EP (the mind-bending III which featured Vast of Lluvia fame on second guitar and as a major songwriter/contributor), and a handful of shows were played around their native Santa Cruz area until the band started to fade away and get sucked unexplainably back into the twilight that had birthed it. From then Leucosis has tried to exist on the plane of human existence but its innate collapsing and self-devouring nature has inevitably made the band’s tangible form fall back into the abyss, disintegrating, and making it regress once again to mere shadow-form, living on the edge of an immaterial void where existence is permanently shattered and disavowed.

In its first three-four years existing as an actual band Leucosis has littered the underground with some of the most visionary and twisted atmospheric black metal tapes and LPs to have ever been conceived by human mind (all of which also sold out in a matter of hours), and those lucky enough to have witnessed the exceptionally rare occasions in which the band played live refer to experience as a mezmerizing and unforgettable.

Today the duo that makes up Leucosis exists solely as a sensorial existence, as if the project has found its final form and ultimate destination and dimension within everyone’s subconscious and everyone’s most remote fears and paranoias, disappearing entirely as a live act. Now completely recluse, the band craft songs to get lost into and in which to disintegrate one self, and reject one's human form, nature, and existence. This is astonishingly obvious in their new record, Liminal, coming four long years after their last release, and consisting of their most accomplished, imaginative, and powerful material to date, as well as one of the greatest moments in US atmospheric black metal of 2017. Liminal will see the light on September 1 2017 on vinyl (clear or limited black vinyl options available), and well as digital, and as a limited edition cassette tape - and all options are now available for pre-order on our store and Bancamp.

Don't miss an exclusive stream of the song Manifest currently featured  over at CVLT Nation and stay tuned for more music to surface elsewhere soon.

SUTEKH HEXEN & BLSPHM: Infamous 2014 Tape Split Finally Available As Limited Diehard 7"

We're excited to announce the resurrection of a long lost gem, that we now present to you re-adorned with breath-taking and new visual vestments and enhanced in every auditory and visual way possible. Coming as a dual-color 45RPM 7" vinyl cut, we're honored to bring you a true unholy alliance in sonic form: the staggering 2014 split between Bay Area ritualistic audio terrorists Sutekh Hexen, and Seattle-based sonic disembodiment one man operation BLSPHM - now remastered (by none other than James Plotkin), re-packedged, and all around resurrected in its ultimate and most destructively pleasing form.

Originally released by Dead Accents in 2014 as 50 hand-numbered cassettes, to coincide with Debacle Fest 2014, this release sees the two entities tread shadow and reap flesh at the peak of their game and in their period of maximum splendor. With each band spewing forth one spasm each of nerve-shattering audial terror, both movements can be seen as opposite sides of a dark prism which reflect light in different ways, but which both work in harmony to summon a darkened and wretched chasm of aural blight that envelops the listener like a ghostly deluge, wrecking unholy havoc upon their senses.

While this split saw Sutekh Hexen's infamous abyss of raw black metal, harsh noise, and drone combust with unseen vigor, and BLPHM's blackened industrial terror ascend to unthinkable qualitative heights, the original extremely limited tape vanished quickly from the market rendering the release both unfindable and somewhat forgotten - a fate much too unfair for such an iconic and masterful accomplishment in recent extreme underground music history.

As such we could not be happier to bring you the second and ultimate incarnation of this gloriously wretched split as a dual color vinyl 7", elegantly enhanced by a die-hard hand made packaging consisting of a black heavy cardstock flap, each copy letterpressed one by one by hand with silver inks by Demian Johnston of BLSPHM  himself. The standard and more widely available edition will be available as purple vinyl, while a limited edition black vinyl will also be available in extremely small quantities and with a slightly more elaborate look given by a letterpressed OBI strip. The staggering layout was designed by Sutekh Hexen founding member Kevin Gan Yuen using source imagery hand-drawn by surreal horror art luminary Stephen Wilson.

Officially released on August 4 2017 - you can now listen to the split right here to the left and purchase digital and physical copies on our Bandcamp and store. EU fans can grab both color options from Spanish experimental boutique label Bestiarie.

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.