CRYPTAE: Dutch Experimental Raw Death Metal Deliriants Unveil Surreal and Crushing Debut LP "Nightmare Traversal" - Pre-Orders, Official Music Video, and Track Streams Posted.

Sentient Ruin is proud to work again with Cryptae, one of contemporary death metal’s most enigmatic and defiant entities who we’ve worked with ever since their first demo tape, as we ready the release of their debut LP “Nightmare Traversal" scheduled for release on vinyl, casette tape and digital formats on October 2020 and pre-ordreable now via our Bandcamp and website shop.

The track “Oubliette” was unveiled earlier this month in occasion of Bandcamp Friday, and now we’re happy to offer you another glimpse into this abhorrent album via the exclusive music video premiere of the track “Cryptic Passage”, published today by CVLT Nation - who in presenting the the song and visuals remark that “the band’s first ever music video for the track “Cryptic Passage”, is an unparalleled and surreal audio-visual experience that confirms the Dutch duo as one of the most unique, visionary, and insane entities in contemporary death metal and extreme metal vanguards in general.”. You can read the feature and check out the track HERE.

Dutch experimental raw death metal deliriants Cryptae (featuring members of Plague Organ, Imperial Cult, Dead Neanderthals etc.) set out to once again crush your synapses with the nauseating and surrealistic churning miasma that is their debut full-length album "Nightmare Traversal". Although both band members come from vastly different musical backgrounds, which include experimental and improvised styles of music outside of metal, Cryptae remains the conduit through which they revel in their unending love for the most defiling forms of death metal and through which they explore the possibilities of the genre's most aberrant deformations. With "Nightmare Traversal" the duo focused on writing the most warped, disorienting, and suffocating death metal delirium they could come up with, leaving experimentation and free-form composition to run rampant as usual while adding more focus than ever before to the violence and inescapability of their unique and unclassifiable death metal crush-depth.

Lyrically and thematically on"Nightmare Traversal" the band has envisioned a surreal and dystopian artificial landscape inspired by old violent and gore-drenched video games, almost like stripping away the player, the monsters, the guns and the gore from 90s games like DOOM, Carmageddon and Blood, to leave the motionless and surrealistic digitalized settings to take a life and center scene of their own. This has resulted in an amorphous and glitched aural monstrosity packed with bleak lyrics, oppressive atmospheres, and erratic song structures channeling visions of crude concrete geometry, suffocating corridors, hidden passages and drab horizons of an empty and encapsulated digital world that strangles the listener. Completely unclassifiable, hideously crushing, and triumphantly weird, "Nightmare Traversal" is an experimental raw death metal lucid nightmare, the cold echo of collapsing buildings, mangled flesh, crumbled steel, exploding bodies, and hollow shrieks reverberating through an abandoned and warped universe of pixelated horrors and inverted digitalized architectures.

Cryptae made heads turn in 2017 with their insane self-titled debut demo tape, an hallucinogenic and erratic spasm of experimental raw death metal rooted in improvisation and free-form composition that instantly established them as an unpredictable and visionary anomaly in death metal. From its sophisticated minimalist and surreal aesthetic to the unclassifiable horrific music, the release instantly made the band standout as a complete absurdity in death metal, and while voluntarily cryptic and unaccessible, the demo tape was soon sold out shortly after release. The band then followed up in 2019 with “Vestigial” (released on vinyl in collaboration with Tartarus Records), a single track, twenty-minute delirium of experimental death metal improvisation that confirmed the band as a total untethered rogue entity within death metal. “Nightmare Traversal" is the the culmination of the band’s visionary experimentalism coupled with their isolationist confidence, talent and perseverance in wanting to create unheard death metal absurdities that lay on a plane of existence entirely their own.

EGREGORE: Utah-Based One-Man Blackened Grindcore Entity Joins Sentient Ruin - Six-Track Tape Compilation Preordeable Now.

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Sentient Ruin is proud to welcome into its fold one-man blackened grindcore entity EGREGORE, the recently launched solo project of Utah-based multi-instrumentalist M.A.E. The collaboration will see the light via a limited edition cassette compilation retrospective titled “Thought Form” , scheduled for a September 25 2020 release.

Envisioned by band mastermind M.A.E and Sentient Ruin together, "Thought Form" is a fifteen-minute cassette tape compilation that includes all of Egregore's tracks released so far via various self released demo tapes and splits, plus two more brand new previously unreleased tracks. The six blistering cuts contained in "Thought Form" introduce Egregore as an unprecedented aural scourge, delivering a blinding and feral obfuscation of complete sonic ruin grounded in the darkest and most elitarian and devastating strains of grindcore and death metal. With a wide arsenal of influences ranging from early Carcass, early Napalm Death, and early Bolt Thrower to the dark and sinister atmospheres of bands like Convulse and Immolation all the way to the grim and malefic intransigence of black metal, Egregore has created a dark weaponized conduit for complete aural bedlam that masterfully unites the iconic filth and ferocity of early grindcore and 90’s death metal with the crushing cruelty and darkness of war metal and modern blackened death metal.

Egregore is an extreme metal vibration created in 2020 in Ogden, Utah, by multi-instrumentalist solo artist M.A.E. handling all instruments and recordings duties on all his releases by himself. The solo project first emerged in April 2020 with the release of the 1st demo, “Ritual Consciousness”, on Astral Tulpa Records, a blinding assault of blackened death-grind terror that immediately set the tone of the sheer force and vision of the project. The debut demo was soon followed in by the 2nd demo, “Dysthymic Gloom”, also released on Astral Tulpa Records in August 2020, which was an unmistakable step up from its predecessor in production quality and execution, further confirming the project’s bleak and perfectly executed vision. Musically and sonically, Egregore is influenced by a variety of bands in the realms of death metal, black metal, crust/d-beat, grindcore, and beyond. A few of M.A.E.’s personal influences appearing through the project are Carcass, Darkthrone, Repulsion, Nihilist, Entombed, Sepultura, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Thin Lizzy, Discharge, Bolt Thrower, and Convulse, a broad spectrum of influences which has resulted in a devastating and exceptionally articulate sound.

A great deal of importance is given to lyrical content and the project’s themes and symbolism. In Egregore M.A.E. focuses his creativity on the occult, mystical experiences, unexplained phenomena, metaphysics, and other strange encounters and philosophical phenomena permeating the unknown. The project’s name itself is also profoundly mystical and occult, and M.A.E will only provide you with the dictionary definition and will let the reader/listener determine what it means to their own chemically induced hallucinated, subjective human experience: “Egregore” (also Egregor) is an occult concept representing a "thoughtform" or "collective group mind", an autonomous psychic entity made up of, and influencing, the thoughts of a group of people.

PLAGUE ORGAN: Dutch Avantgarde Black Metal Duo Issue Abhorrent And Hallucinogenic Debut Album - Entire Work Streamed At Invisible Oranges.

Sentient Ruin is honored to seal its allegiance with enigmatic dutch avant-garde black/death metal deformation Plague Organ, as we ready the release of their debut album absurdity "Orphan" on August 28 2020 on cassette tape and digital formats. The staggering release features unrivaled artwork by Stefan Thanneur of renowned french experimental death metal alchemists Chaos Echoes.

Leading up to its imminent release, Invisible Oranges premiered the full stream of the single-track forty-minute album, stating that Orphan" “takes black metal and distills it to a primal, raging sound -- a droning, blasting miasma of sounds and auditory hallucinations.“ - you can read the feature and checkout the stream HERE.

With influences ranging from deviant free-form jazz, drone and dark ambient, to ritualistic black and death metal all the way to the most erratic strains of kraut and improvised psychedelia, Plague Organ’s abhorrent avant-garde/ambient black/death metal deformity"Orphan" is a spiraling and malformed mantra of deviated experimentalism and inverted incantations designed to bore into the listener's mind and ravage it of its sanity. On the single forty-minute track, the deranged Dutch duo unravel a single nauseating and diseased spell of guitar-less aural claustrophobia made of hallucinating synth patterns, obsessive percussions, psychotic bass-lines, blood-curdling grunts and spectral lamentations that combined unison weave a suffocating and disorienting fractal of self-replicating passages, making the listener feel asphyxiated in a dimensionless maze with no discernible exit. Trapped inside the near-geometric absurdity the listener becomes the subject of a lucid nightmare as they sink deeper into a state of catatonic delirium and of helpless hypnosis while their psyche is meticulously consumed and devoured by album's abhorrent repetitions and winding hypnotic deformities. By all means a triumph in fringe sonic experimentalism and among the most accomplished and unclassifiable avant-garde extreme metal anomalies of the year, "Orphan" is a must for all fans of other deranged experimentalists like Ride for Revenge, 夢遊病者, Sunn O))), Chaos Echoes, Antediluvian, Oksennus, Sect Pig and beyond.

Plague Organ are a project by Rene Aquarius (Cryptae, Imperial Cult, Horrid Apparition, Imperial Cult, Sneezing Pus, Celestial Bodies, Dead Neanderthals, etc) and recording engineer Marlon W.. Embracing complete and near-lawless experimentalism, Plague Organ have even abandoned guitars in favor of using bass, drums, and synth to construct an abhorrent aural maze made of hallucinogenic fractals, surreal ambience, and repetitive mantras to enslave and dismantle the listener's psyche. Reference-less and formless, debut LP "Orphan" unfolds like an experimental anomaly with no beginning, end, top, bottom or confines, appearing simply as is, in the instant, and then repeating in an infinite sequence of instances until perception and reference points have been vaporized, time dissolved, and the listener annihilated into a violent trance. Embracing the most cerebral and deviant aspects of the ritualistic and profane, Plague Organ have taken key elements of extreme black and death metal (oppressive atmospheres and arrangements, unrelenting rhythmic violence, repulsive vocals) and bent them out of shape, blending them with experimental ambient, psychedelic abstractism, and free form improvisation to materialize the quintessence of cerebral aural abominations.

EVAPORATED SORES: American Industrial Noise Death-Doom Abomination Ready Release of Inhumanly Crushing Debut LP "Ulcerous Dimensions" - Track Premiered at Decibel Magazine.

Sentient Ruin is proud to usher the abhorrent birth of American Industrial Noise Death-Doom abomination Evaporates Sores, via release of their humiliatingly crushing debut LP “Ulcerous Dimensions”, arriving on LP, CS and digital formats on September 3 2020 via Sentient Ruin worldwide.

“Ulcerous Dimensions” is an enigmatic and inhuman aural deformity they will arrive on limited clear vinyl limited to 100 units and sold via direct label retail only, and on standard black vinyl, cassette, and via all digital and streaming outlets.

Ahead of its release the album has already generated praise from Decibel Magazine who’ve offered to exclusively unveil the album’s opening track “Claimed by Inertia” stating that on “Ulcerous Dimensions” Evaporates Sores “ roll out a sound as heavy, callus and incessantly crushing as life itself in the year 2020.“ - the feature and track are available HERE.

Strikingly unique and by all standards of decency completely unheard of, American industrial noise death-doom aberration Evaporated Sores debut with their skull-crushing debut LP "Ulcerous Dimensions", a gnarled and horrifying extreme metal experiment that establishes the band as an unprecedented beacon of aural barbarism, bridging various opposites of harsh and inverted sonic extremism to synthesize a violent and implacable design to mankind's complete annihilation. Fusing scathing industrial noise and power electronics with the most worm-ridden death metal and the suffocating inescapability of sludge and doom metal, "Ulcerous Dimensions" is a sadistic trial in aural torment, where the listener is cast at a center of a lucid nightmare and made the subject of an unrelenting sensorial assault of complete aural humiliation in which suffocating crawling tempos, claustrophobic and surreal atmospheres, skin-peeling electronics and erratic bone-fracturing death metal chaos cascade toward total oblivion resounding the listener's complete obliteration.

Formed by Members of Filtheater, Calques, Maltheist, Uzumaki (just to name a few amongst dozens of other projects the members have been a part of throughout the years) Evaporates Sores first come together in 2019 as a “bedroom” project over the span of several months and remote long distance interactions by its members sharing demos and ideas over the internet without ever meeting in person. The three members of he project have distinctive backgrounds which ended up paving the path toward Evaporated Sores’ unheard of and completely off the charts sound, with the instrumental section taking shape in Mississippi and focusing on the death metal skeleton of the project, vocals being added in Portland Oregon, and the industrial/noise overlays being done in Alabama via members of Calques who are no strangers to such deranged electronic experiments. The band’s sound however isn’t the result of mere circumstance, it is a meticulous and deliberate distillation and deconstruction of sounds, first disfigured, and then coerced back together to forcefully (co)exist in a deviated symbiosis like the most gruesome forms of parasitisms or lab experiments. The final result turned into the deformed death metal/industrial noise abstraction that is “Ulcerous Dimensions”, the glorious full-length album debut the band has placed in the hands of Sentient Ruin for a 2020 release.

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.).