***"Pásmo", meaning "zone" in Czech, or a place of rigorous uniqueness sculpted into its form by crumbling geopolitical and industrial power, wild nature, and ancient local culture and lore. Pásmo's mesmerizing debut self-titled album (originally released in spring 2024 on cassette by the Czech label Vřesová Studánka and now finding its first ever vinyl release) is an unparalleled voyage crafted through the mediums of dark post-punk and arcane heavy metal into the remote landscapes and mystique of the ex-soviet Eastern Bloc, narrated through the eyes of two self-described "backwoods stalkers" who are one with their culture, origins, and place, or what they call the "zone", the Moravian-Silesian region, one of the poorest regions in Czechia, immersed in majestic mountains and valleys with beautiful nature and folk culture contrasted by the vestiges of Gottwald's soviet industrialization of the region. "Nature and Metal" as the duo summarizes their music. Eight songs unraveling visions of soviet industrial ruins, abandoned factories, and dissolving concrete buildings scattered amongst the region's wild nature and consumed far beyond, eastward more into the relics of the old Soviet horizon reclaimed by nature and falling into dusty memory. An encompassment of Eastern European culture condensed into thirty five minutes of dark musical storytelling and spiritual reconnection to the zone. The epic crust punk of Amebix and Killing Joke's apocalyptic industrial post-punk transposed into the crumbling atomic bunkers, abandoned mines, and industrial rusted ruins of the Eastern wilderness. The visions, sounds and legacy of Chernobyl and "Stalker" transfigured into shamanic...
LP $24.95
04/11/2025