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King Woman

Doubt

Flenser

King Woman is fronted by former Whirr vocalist Kristina Esfandiari. The group’s debut 12-inch Doubt unfurls lugubriously, blossoming into a haunting sprawl of crushing, slo-mo miserablism. Imagine some twisted fusion of PJ Harvey, Sunn 0))) and Black Sabbath. Churning washes of crumbling distortion and tar-pit riffage drift grimly through billowing clouds of dense, layered thrum; roiling backdrops for Esfandiari’s throaty, bewitching vocals. The sonic heft is matched by lyrical themes of family and religious abuse, and the suffering borne of both.  Esfandiari originally formed King Woman back in 2009, but the band took a backseat to her other projects Miserable and Whirr (with whom she played from 2012 to 2013). Doubt is a follow-up to previous EP releases Dove / Fond Affections (The Native Sound) and Degrida / Sick Bed (Sleep Genius). First pressing limited to 500 copies!  “… both a classical approach to composition and a modern narrative of expressing sadness through slow-sinking quicksand.” —Impose

Boduf Songs

Stench Of Exist

Flenser

England / Ohio’s Mat Sweet presents his latest album under the Boduf Songs moniker via The Flenser! Stench of Exist is at once his most accessible and most esoteric work to date; from the opium flow of the tracks, running headily into one another like tributaries to river, to the muted-industrial-electronic-effected drums underscoring the spiraling melodies and fluttering drones, to the clean and rich guitar, abstracted cycles and feedback walls, its whispered doom metal masquerades as a lullaby. Stench of Exist unfolds languorously, laced with mysterious electronic filigree. Gorgeously intimate, it transforms the minimal into maximal with layers of electro-detritus wreathed in lush guitar strums, street-side field recordings, reverberating pianos and softly crooned vocals. It is a record of rain and cities and nighttime. The collision of arabesque tonalities with electronic sound and ambience brings to mind the promise of Blade Runner—half-asleep at 4:00 A.M. and slightly medicated, with pyramids and flame-spewing cityscapes in downpour glowing against the fluttering eyelids in the almost-dreaming consciousness. A record for saturnine commuters, on headphones, after sunset.  “Unsettling and gorgeous...” —All Music Guide “In Boduf Songs’ brutal theology, darkness devours light, death defeats the living, and nature and culture are at perpetual fisticuffs.” —Pitchfork “Boduf Songs makes some of the duskiest, autumnal and beautiful loner psychedelia.” —Stereogum “The spare use of his blurry instrumentation is the secret ingredient to the horror in these songs. Sweet packs a punch for such a quiet fellow, and his vortex is indeed a powerful one.” —Tiny Mix...

Kayo Dot

Coffins On Io

Flenser

Led by founding member Toby Driver (Secret Chiefs 3), Kayo Dot emerged in 2002 from the ashes of Boston, MA, metal group Maudlin of the Well. Since then, Driver has led Kayo Dot through lineup changes and stylistic shifts: from traditional metal, to atmospheric, avant-garde metal; and now with their new album Coffins on Io, to the bats-in-your-belfry hard rock of Sisters of Mercy intersecting with Peter Gabriel-era Genesis, Scritti Politti and early Roxy Music. In 2013, Kayo Dot released their critically acclaimed conceptual double-album Hubardo. Undeniably experimental, but largely unclassifiable, it received rave reviews: SputnikMusic ranked it among the best of 2013, and Cvlt Nation called it, “mesmerizing avant-garde blackened doom,” and a “towering achievement.” But Kayo Dot’s evolution is governed by an inscrutable inner-logic. Accessible songwriting on Coffins on Io and an emphasis on vocal melody and electronic percussion makes the record’s darkness and intensity familiar and relatable. For example: the dark wave of “Offramp Cycle, Pattern 22” might be unrecognizable to Kayo Dot’s metal fans. “The sound is kind of like a sexy combination of Type O Negative, Peter Gabriel, Sisters of Mercy,” Driver says. But the track also encompasses the brooding menace of classic Bauhaus as well as current dark wavers Cold Cave and Crystal Stilts: artists young and old who live and die in those unknowable corners where heaviness meets delicacy and sincerity meets theatricality. Driver’s penchant for prog rock surfaces in the ethereal “Spirit Photography,” complete with a saxophone melody line—strikingly gentle when compared...

Have A Nice Life

Deathconsciousness

Flenser

***Available on both black and mint colored vinyl. Have a Nice Life released their debut double-album Deathconsciousness in 2008 to a whimper and critical non-interest; six years later, the band followed it up with 2014’s stunner The Unnatural World. In the meantime, Deathconsciousness has become a cult classic whose seamless blend of shoegaze, post-punk, new wave, industrial and noise influences inspires fanatic obsession. Now, longtime Have a Nice Life collaborator The Flenser reissues Deathconsciousness on colored vinyl with deluxe packaging. The band commented, “Working with Flenser lets us keep things comfortable on our end, while also pressing enough copies to actually meet the need and not creating an artificially inflated collector’s market, as happened with some of our past releases.” Rhythmic, primal and expansive, Deathconsciousness offers a meditation on death, loss and unrequited love, with repeated listens revealing new layers of depth and meaning. The Flenser’s reissue is accompanied by a 75-page booklet detailing the dark and forgotten history of the Antiochean cult—an engrossing narrative that blurs the lines between liner notes, novella and academic text. “Deathconsciousness is probably a perfect record” —Last Train To Cool “A masterpiece of depression” —The Quietus “85-minute powerhouse of a double-album” —The Needle Drop “Have a Nice Life’s Deathconsciousness could quite possibly move the Earth” —Sputnik Music (5/5 rating)

Botanist

Vi: Flora

Flenser

One of the Bay Area’s most interesting bands, Botanist is excited to announce their sixth sequential release. Titled VI: Flora, this eleven-song album was recorded by Otrebor in The Verdant Realm and mastered by Jack Shirley at Atomic Garden.  VI: Flora continues the story of The Botanist, a crazed man of science who lives in self-imposed exile, as far away from Humanity and its crimes against Nature as possible. Seated upon his throne of Veltheimia in the Verdant Realm, his sanctuary of fantasy and wonder, he surrounds himself with plants and flowers, finding solace in the company of the Natural world. While recent albums detailed a misanthropic master plan for the destruction of mankind at the hands of plants, VI: Flora focuses rather on the wondrous beauty of the plants themselves through a gauzy haze of dreamlike sound. The voice of The Botanist acts as spectral underpinning to the reverie. Botanist’s previous releases—I: The Suicide Tree / II: A Rose from the Dead (tUMULt, 2011), III: Doom in Bloom (TotalRust, 2012) and most recently, 2013’s IV: Mandragora (The Flenser, 2013)—have seen much critical acclaim, landing on NPR’s 25 Best Metal Albums, Metal Sucks’ Top 15 Metal Albums, Metal Injection’s Top 10 Releases, and an honorable mention on Pitchfork’s Top 40 Albums of 2011.  “… music that disobeys every rule about black metal, sounds nothing like black metal, and yet can’t really be called anything but black metal. In that way, Botanist could be the fullest realization of the post-black...

Mamaleek

He Never Spoke A Mumblin’ Word

Flenser

He Never Spoke a Mumblin’ Word is the fourth full-length from electronic black metal band Mamaleek. Mixed by Jack Shirley (Deafheaven, Botanist, Wreck & Reference), the album follows sought-after releases on Furusiyya and Enemies List Home Recordings. The San Francisco-based duo is comprised of two anonymous brothers. “This record marks an end as much as a beginning. While much more was recorded during this time, these four spirituals seem to form a coherence lacking on previous escapades. We are grateful to have this released, casting off the burdens of the past that, try as we might to escape, haunt the soul in a strange fashion.”  “San Francisco-based Mamaleek achieved a tense hybrid of black-metal frenzy, industrial syncopation, shoegazing distortion and dark ambience on Mamaleek (2008), notably the 18-minute ‘Shout On Children,’ and on the jazzier and denser Fever Dream (Furusiyya Recordings, 2008).” —Piero Scaruffi  “The duo—a pair of brothers who prefer to keep their identities a secret—mix Middle Eastern song structures and samples, atonal experimental and avant-garde accents, guttural black metal howls, accessible electronic breakbeats, sludgy doom metal guitar-work, nimble piano interludes, and plenty of pop panache to create an unrelenting, moving sound.” —Forbes

Wreck & Reference

Want

Flenser

***CHECK STOCK!!! Recieved a 7.7 rating from Pitchfork. Since their inception in 2011, California-based heavy experimental duo Wreck and Reference has (de)constructed a manifesto of post-genre misanthropy using only drums, vocals and electronics. A handful of unorthodox and captivating releases have turned heads of critics and fans alike, and live, the band is crushing. Now, Wreck and Reference returns with their best and most distinct work yet. Sophomore full-length Want explores more refined and melodic territory, yet the band keeps one foot in the experimental, electronic, and post-metal genres. Mixed and mastered by Jack Shirly (Deafheaven, Whirr, Loma Prieta), Want is Wreck and Reference fully realized: undeniably nihilistic and devastatingly addictive.  “... pushes the traditional metal template toward regions unexplored, expanding the sonic legacies of Swans’ filth and Big Black’s harshness.” —Invisible Oranges  “... weirdly heavy and unnerving...” —NPR  “... vast, crackling chasms of drones and feedback into remarkably melodic and heavy pop.” —Lurker’s Path

Planning For Burial

Desideratum

Flenser

***CHECK STOCK!!! Received a 7.9 rating from Pitchfork. Death to false gloom! Desideratum is New Jersey cult gloomgaze act Planning For Burial’s sophomore full-length and the followup to their 2010 statement of purpose, Leaving, issued by legendary lo-fi imprint Enemies List Home Recordings. Simultaneously nostalgic and futurist sounding, Planning For Burial is the work of mastermind Thom Wasluck, who filters his influences thorough a droning, gloomy spyglass to evoke the most haunting blues this side of the gray waters of the Atlantic. The project is often lumped in with the current wave of “bedroom recording artists,” yet Wasluck stands apart from his peers due in no small part to his education and expertise in sound design. Planning For Burial’s brand of dark shoegaze is hard to categorize, but it incorporates elements of slowcore, doom, drone, ’90s alt-rock, ’80s goth, black metal and mournful, Neil Young-esque regret. In the last four years, Planning for Burial has released a slew of EPs and splits on various labels, and shared the stage with a wide breadth of musical compatriots from Chelsea Wolfe to Deafheaven, seeming out of place alongside none.

Vaura

Missing

Flenser

Now available on vinyl! The Missing, the sophomore album from Vaura, draws from vastly different genres including ’80s goth, black metal and progressive rock. Vaura is an all-star cast of Brooklyn avant-grade and metal musicians, featuring Joshua Strawn (Azar Swan) on vocals, Kevin Hufnagel (Gorguts, Dysrhythmia), drummer Charlie Schmid and cult superstar Toby Driver on bass (Secret Chiefs 3, Kayo Dot, Maudlin of the Well). Despite the often complex musicality of the members’ other projects, the group’s sound is cohesive and streamlined, with atmospheric vocals and a hypnotic rhythm section intersected by black metal blast-beats, chorus-laden guitars and synth overtones. The Missing was originally issued on CD by Profound Lore Records to great critical acclaim, appearing on many year-end lists. Their debut album Selenelion was released by New York’s Wierd Records in 2012.  “The Missing is a daring, provocative album that mixes the best of ’80s goth-pop, musical mojo and clean vocals, and somehow makes it all work.” —Decibel  “[D]isarmingly catchy... Vaura’s stylistic composite is decisive and deliberate.” —Pitchfork

White Suns

Totem

Flenser

Totem is rock music realizing its obsolescence; the work of a band compelled to mutate. Exploring the intersection of punk and electronics, White Suns sculpt organic noise with detuned guitars, amplified drums and makeshift electronics, oscillating between crushingly dense assaults and articulate hushed passages. While retaining the signature onslaught of previous works, Totem is tempered by deadened stares and slow-burn instrumentals. The album was recorded by renowned engineer Martin Bisi (Sonic Youth, Swans, Foetus) at his labyrinthine BC Studio compound. Comprised of members Kevin Barry, Dana Matthiessen and Rick Visser, the Brooklyn band has existed since 2006 and released two full-length albums, Waking in the Reservoir (ugEXPLODE, 2011) and Sinews (Load, 2012), along with a handful of small-run releases. Their output has garnered accolades from The New Yorker, SPIN, Pitchfork and Tiny Mix Tapes, among others. White Suns have toured the US extensively and built a reputation as a threatening and intense live act.  “... dense and unrelenting, a summer jam record for the black turtleneck conspiracy theory set.” —Layla Gibbon, Maximum Rocknroll, August 2012  “The ostensible soundtrack for the apocalypse.” —Brad Cohan, Dusted, June 2012

Have A Nice Life

The Unnatural World

Flenser

***BACK IN STOCK!!! Received a 7.8 rating from Pitchfork. For years, fans of Connecticut’s post-industrial doomgaze two-piece Have a Nice Life have restlessly awaited the band’s second gloom-fueled, autobiographical meditation. Now, San Francisco label The Flenser is proud to unleash The Unnatural World. With eight songs clocking in at 47 minutes, The Unnatural World is Have a Nice Life’s most monumental release yet—a colossal, perfectly orchestrated work that leaves listeners comatose on the ground beside their record players. This second full-length delivers doom and gloom at a new level, more focused and soul-tearing than ever. The weight of sound is matched only by the band’s piercingly uncomfortable and personal lyrics dredging up themes of modern legend, religious insecurity and crushing depression. Wave after overwhelming wave will slam listeners down into psychological depths of existentialism and woe.  Like its predecessor, the band’s 2008 debut Deathconsciousness, The Unnatural World maintains intensity from quiet lows to staggering highs. No speaker will do it justice and none of you are worthy!  “[Have a Nice Life’s] Tim Macuga and Dan Barrett’s musical project is as much an ambitious and frustrating piece of conceptual art as it is a crushing and soaring rock record.” —Brainwashed12.85

Street Sects

Gentrification I: The Morning After The Night We Raped Death

Flenser

Street Sects

Gentrification II: Broken Windows, Sunken Ceilings

Flenser

Botanist / Palace Of Worms

Hanging Gardens Of Hell / Ode To Joy

Flenser

San Francisco’s two most peculiar black metal bands have conspired to release a mind bending split LP via The Flenser. Botanist and Palace of Worms each contribute three tracks mixed and mastered by Jack Shirley (Deafheaven) at The Atomic Garden Studios; the album is available on vinyl in a limited edition. Botanist is an unconventional one-man post-black metal act featuring vocals, drums and hammered dulcimer instrumentation. Hanging Gardens of Hell is told from the perspective of a crazed man of science who lives in self-imposed exile, as far away as possible from humanity and its crimes against nature. The Botanist awaits the day when humans will either die or kill each other off, which will allow plants to reclaim the Earth. Formed in 2007, Palace of Worms is a one-man black metal band in the vein of Leviathan and Crebain. Frontman Balan plays all instruments: drums, guitar, bass. Palace of Worms has released a demo, two full-lengths (2009’s The Forgotten and 2010’s Lifting the Veil) and a 2012 split with Mastery.  “Botanist could be the fullest realization of the post-black metal concept yet, and that makes the future awfully exciting.” —The Quietus  “The brilliance of Botanist, then, is that he takes all these things that are not metal—gentle British folk, shoegaze, New Age—and shows you that they are, in fact, more metal than metal.” —The Atlantic  “Palace of Worms comes highly recommended to anyone who has at some point found refuge in the recordings of other San...

Wreck & Reference

No Youth

Flenser

The Flenser is proud to reissue No Youth, the debut album from California heavy experimental duo Wreck and Reference. Originally released in 2012, No Youth quickly went out of print and has become a sought-after collector’s item. Formed by drummer Ignat Frege and multi-instrumentalist Felix Skinner, Wreck and Reference augments the typical heavy-guitar-driven doom tradition with frenzied electronic samples. Usually filed under “Metal,” the duo defies genre classifications, presenting an existential threat to the tired and trite conformity found within the metal hegemony. Their melancholic, fierce and catchy sound is crafted with synths in place of guitar, along with live drums and vocals. Drawing on influences ranging from industrial to doom metal and noise rock, No Youth is a unique mix of seemingly contradictory elements that results in a devastatingly heavy, somber and addictive whole.  “The uncategorizable Wreck and Reference has released two weirdly heavy and unnerving records thus far—Black Cassette and No Youth—by scribbling together doom metal, industrial, drone, noise and whatever else with drums, guitar and a Korg sampler. Riffs and sonic quirks are regularly abandoned as the songs move forward, making for unpredictable cliffhangers that leave listeners wanting more.” —NPR  “... spare, haunted, and riveting.” —Stereogum  “Youth is an unconventional composition. Wreck and Reference have no rules.” —Cvltnation

Eight Bells

Captain’s Daughter

Flenser

The Flenser is proud to present the vinyl edition of the debut full-length from Portland, Oregon’s Eight Bells. Engineered by sound mastermind Billy Anderson (Melvins, Neurosis, Agalloch), The Captain’s Daughter is comprised of four organic soundscapes that oscillate seamlessly between the tranquil and the terrifying. Originally released on CD by Seventh Rule Recordings, this genre-defying masterwork draws from psychedelic rock, black metal and ambient metal. The power trio formed from the ashes of the San Francisco Bay Area dark psychedelic institution Subarachnoid Space. Eight Bells continues in that band’s tradition of heavy guitar exploration, adding blackened dissonance and minimalist vocals to the mix.  “Eight Bells has created a masterwork with The Captain’s Daughter.” —Steel for Brains  “The Captain’s Daughter is a black metal- and drone-tinged journey through psychedelic doom.” —Sentire Magazine

Loss Of Self

Twelve Minutes

Flenser

Now available on vinyl! Melbourne, Australia’s formidable black metal entity Loss Of Self has teamed up with avant-garde metal label The Flenser to release Twelve Minutes, the follow-up to the band’s highly acclaimed 2012 demo cassette.  Clocking in at just under 30 minutes, the LP features six brand new songs as well as remastered versions of the original three demo tracks. Unfurling dark, sweeping soundscapes, Loss Of Self’s post-rock and twisted black metal surpasses all musical boundaries and restrictions.  Twelve Minutes was mastered by James Plotkin (SUNN0))), Nadja, Isis) and features artwork conceived and illustrated by the band.  “[Twelve Minutes] comes cloaked in the same ragged black shroud that got fans of so-called “post-black metal” all fired up last year, with L.O.S.’ affinity for mesmeric shoegaze and moody post-punk peeking through like the feverish gleam in a madman’s eye.” —Pitchfork “This is a band that’s overflowing with emotion and talent, and they don’t mind pushing past black metal’s walls to the overgrown fields beyond.” —Meat Mead and Metal “Black metal and shoegaze are no strangers to each other, and Loss Of Self pull it off well, nailing that unwelcoming and bitter sound of traditional black metal with a neat knack for depressing melody.” —Tight to the Nail

Wreck & Reference

No Content

Flenser

Formed in 2011 by drummer Ignat Frege and multi-instrumentalist Felix Skinner, San Francisco, California’s Wreck and Reference play by their own rules, employing only drums, vocals and a Korg sampler. After releasing the highly-acclaimed Black Cassette demo (later reissued on vinyl through The Flenser), the pair unleased their debut full-length No Youth in 2012, catapulting them to the forefront of unconventional heavy music. The album generated widespread critical praise, with Invisible Oranges declaring that the forward-thinking band “pushes the traditional metal template toward regions unexplored, expanding the sonic legacies of Swans’ filth and Big Black’s harshness.” Now, Wreck and Reference return with a new genre-defying two-song 7-inch, No Content. Heavy and experimental with nods to post-metal, industrial, electronic, noise and doom, the duo’s latest work is unorthodox and captivating. The devastatingly somber and addictive “Absurdities and Echos” is more melodic and atmospheric than anything the band has done before, while “Abhorrence” is concise and raw.

Skagos

Anarchic

Flenser

Skagos is an altar of life, crafted by living hands, guided by a living mind, in a world dead but ever dreaming. The band formed as a two-piece in 2007 in the depths of the Cascadian black metal scene, and put out their first three releases initially on cassette only. Ást, their debut album proper, was reissued on CD (and more recently, on vinyl) by NHR Records to great critical acclaim, with the Encyclopaedia Metallum calling it an “atmospheric masterpiece.” Now, Skagos presents their second full-length via Flenser Records. At more than 60 minutes, Anarchic is the result of three years of work and features two tracks, “Anarchic I-IV” and “Anarchic V-VII,” made up of several movements. A rough version of the album was released online last year on Skagos’ Bandcamp page and has since been expanded upon with more than 17 minutes of new music. Skagos showcases an expanded sound on Anarchic—developing on the style found on their split with Panopticon (The Flenser, 2010), they offset visceral guitars and gutted growls with ethereal and atmospheric instrumentation and folk elements, making for an engaging and dynamic listen. The band’s complex lyrics address the death of the Earth and the renewal inherent in cyclical time.  “[Anarchic is] an impressive, varied and unique piece of work....” —Pitchfork

Trees

Sickness In

Flenser

***NOW AVAILABLE ON VINYL!!! Sickness In is the third album from Portland’s most wretched, TREES. Following their similarly abject slabs of feedback-doused horror and quasi-formless dirge Lights Bane and Freed of This Flesh on Crucial Blast, the two-song full-length is a slowly rotting heap of droning, slow-motion death-doom riffs decomposing into clouds of black amplifier hum, shrieking voices and tortured screams drifting against the glacial roar of smoking amp stacks and short-circuiting hardware. This time around, the band drops some of their most leaden, majestic riffs yet into a slow-motion filth-storm. Massive, saurian doom rhythms slip way out of the confines of anything resembling a “groove,” deep into rumbling fields of charred, ritualistic chanting and Abruptum-like states of psychotic noise. Opener “Cover Your Mouth” crashes in on an avalanche of thrumming electricity and metallic noise; the crushing, abstract heaviness collapses in on itself while the rhythm section accentuates the rumbling black mess with thunderous blasts of anti-propulsion. Trees have always had a somewhat improvisational bent to their extreme doom-laden horror, but just when the track lies on the verge of a field of pure drone, the band unleashes titanic, earth-scorching riffage. On “Perish,” the resonant sound of throat singing introduces a new wave of howling, ambient feedback and speaker-hiss, soon transformed into another twisted, agonized pain-dirge as those tortured vocals scrape raw, pain-wracked screams that rise and fall behind the amorphous black sludge and diseased drones.

Bosse-de-nage

Iii

Flenser

***NOW AVAILABLE ON VINYL!!! Received a 7.9 rating from Pitchfork. Little is known about Bay Area enigma BOSSE-DE-NAGE, since the band rarely plays live, doesn’t disclose its membership, or partake in promotional activities like interviews or promo photos. Nonetheless, the four-piece has a solid and distinct repertoire at their disposal. A cassette demo (released by Aesop Dekker of Agalloch / Worm Ouroboros / Ludicra fame) and two full-length albums (on Flenser Records) have made an impression within the underground, and the band’s vitriolic mix of minimal black metal, indie rock and post-punk has garnered reviews describing them as a black metal version of the legendary Slint. Their latest album titled simply III, is the most sophisticated and introspective Bosse-De-Nage release to date—one of the most powerful collisions of indie rock and black metal you’ll hear this year. LP limited to 500 copies. CD released on Profound Lore.

Grayceon

Pearl And The End Of The World

Flenser

***San Francisco’s GRAYCEON has prepared the next chapter in their story, a 30-minute album comprised of two sprawling epics that bend the concentration closer toward the band’s rockier roots. Comprised of guiarist MAX DOYLE, cellist JACKIE PEREZ GRATZ (who has played on albums by Om, Agalloch, Cattle Decapitation, Giant Squid, and Amber Asylum), and drummer ZACK FARWELL, the band has managed to tackle the full spectrum of heavy music’s extensive clutch of emotions. Pummeling sludgy metal quickly carves into fiery post-punk that’s knotted with epic experimental rock—all blanketed with the additional allure of ample use of mellow stretches to fully round out the pattern. Cover illustrations by the renowned artist D.V.D'ANDREA.

Botanist

Iv: Mandragora

Flenser

Unconventional one-man black metal band Botanist features vocals, drums, and hammered dulcimer instrumentation. Their fourth full-length, IV: Mandragora, released via experimental metal label The Flenser, is a concept album on the alchemical creation of a mandrake, told from the perspective of The Botanist. A crazed man of science, he dwells in self-imposed exile, as far away as possible from humanity and its crimes against nature. The Botanist surrounds himself with plants and flowers, finding solace in the company of the Natural world and envisioning the destruction of mankind. In the Verdant Realm, his sanctuary of fantasy and wonder, The Botanist awaits the day when humans will either die or kill each other off, thereby allowing plants to make the Earth green once again. Botanist’s previous releases, I: The Suicide Tree, II: A Rose From the Dead (released July 2011 on tUMULt), and III: Doom in Bloom (TotalRust), have seen much critical acclaim, landing on NPR’s 25 Best Metal Albums of 2011, Metal Sucks’ Top 15 Metal Albums of 2011 and Metal Injection’s Top 10 Releases of 2011, and earning an honorable mention on Pitchfork’s Top 40 Albums of 2011. This next eccentric and remarkable chapter is sure to turn heads in 2013.

Giles Corey

Hinterkaifeck

Flenser

“Wretched Humanity, the fault is yours.”  Giles Corey is the gloomy, stripped-down solo project of Dan Barrett, one of the masterminds behind the cult act Have A Nice Life. Dealing with issues like suicide, depression, and the paranormal, Giles Corey is both incredibly bleak and intimate. Two years after the project’s self-titled debut, Barrett recorded three minimalist tracks before a series of live performances, releasing them as Hinterkaifeck.  Hinterkaifeck was released in February 2013 by Enemies List Home Recordings, and has existed exclusively as a digital release until now. The title is a reference to a gruesome and mysterious mass murder that took place on a remote farm in 1922 near Munich, Germany. The Flenser presents Giles Corey’s Hinterkaifeck as a one-sided 12-inch record with a special etching on the b-side.  “Giles Corey’s Hinterkaifeck is a testament to his ability to wield emotion with his ambience and subtlety.”  —Sputnikmusic

Bosse-de-nage / Deafheaven

Deafheaven / Boss-de-nage

Flenser

***The Flenser is proud to release a split album by the two best minimalist black metal bands from the Bay Area, DEAFHEAVEN and BOSSE-DE-NAGE. The split features two tracks—Deafheaven’s cover of Mogwai’s “Punk Rock / Cody” and Boss-De-Nage’s new original track “A Mimesis of Purpose.”

Palace Of Worms / Mastery

Split

Flenser

Coffinworm

Great Bringer Of Night

Flenser

***COFFINWORM play ugly music for hateful people. The doomhauling quintet first came crawling out of the primordial ooze of Indianapolis’ DIY underground in 2007, and have kept themselves busy doing the devil’s work ever since. The Flenser is pleased to be dragging this filthy gem out into the sunlight to give it the treatment it so richly deserves. This deluxe version will include two additional unreleased tracks from the demo recording sessions in all their raw glory, and comes graced with artwork from BYRAN PROTEAU. Sludge, tortured doom, snarling black metal, knuckle dragging death metal and a few handfuls of crossed-over punk meld together into one of the nastiest, most misanthropic, most wonderfully ugly albums you’ll ever hear. Previous release on Profound Lore.

Obolus

Lament

Flenser

***OBOLUS is one of the most exciting new bands in the American black metal realm, devoid of pretension or pandering and devoted to the ways of old, when nothing but the strength of will and power of the riff mattered, and the music spoke, loudly, for itself. Lament contains multitudes and speaks with the thunderous voice of a thousand falling angels.

Lake Of Blood

As Time And Tide Erodes Stone

Flenser

***LAKE OF BLOOD hail from the battered streets of southern Los Angeles. Formed in 2007, and with a handful of solid, well-received releases under their belts, this strong-minded quintet have been spreading their blackened gospel far and wide and reaping that which they have sown. Their stellar debut, the Heed the Primal Calling EP, caught the ears of many, and led to a split with Panopticon’s A. Lundr in 2009. Word travelled, and an ensuing agreement was made with the UK’s Human Jigsaw Records to release the band’s next offering, a two-song behemouth entitled As Time and Tide Erodes Stone in early 2011. Heavily atmospheric, viciously intense, and dedicated to the bone, this feral entity's aggressive, dissonant take on black metal weaves together the genre's puritanical roots with elements of doom, thrash, folk and startling moments of clarity. The two tracks contained within As Time and Tide Erodes Stone are epic in far more than length; these songs are sagas, odes to a dying world and an uncertain future. After the album’s release, the band hit the road with blood brothers Vestiges, and press accolades filtered in. Soon enough, fellow California nightmares The Flenser recognized the burning potential within Lake of Blood’s sprawling compositions, and signed on to reissue the album on limited vinyl. Born of smog but with eyes turned towards the great unknown, Lake of Blood are poised to overtake the soulless hordes of imitators and make a fatally deep impression upon that which is American black metal.

Lycus

Demo Mmxi

Flenser

***Originally formed in 2008, lain to rest, and now, with their triumphant 2011 demo, resurrected in despair, California’s LYCUS are a welcome addition to the doomed pantheon. This weighty four-piece play mournful, weighty funeral doom in the vein of genre titans Skepticism and Worship and peers Loss; Demo MMXI is elegant in its despondency, and achingly beautiful in its sorrow. It’s frankly unbelievable that this is an initial offering; the complexity, maturity and crushing, heaving emotions encapsulated within these three compositions is nothing short of breathtaking. These forgotten sons of Samothrace, distant cousins of Anhedonist, purebred descendents of Asunder, have created something truly timeless, and have only just begun their slow, certain rise to the absolute zenith. Multiple scribes and band folk alike have already heaped praise upon this album, and it’s only fitting to see it entombed in wax by The Flenser. These three majestic compositions simply demand to be ensconced within the loving embrace of virgin vinyl, and now, finally the twain shall meet. Mastered on 45rpm vinyl by COLIN MARSTON (Krallice, Atheist, Jarboe, Rosetta). Limited to 500 copies.

Wreck & Reference

Black Cassette

Flenser

Back in 2011, experimental upstarts Wreck And Reference self-released their debut EP, Black Cassette. Drawing on the blown-out intensity of black metal and the angularity of noise rock, their radical vision captivated the underground music scene, including The Flenser. It was immediately apparent that the band’s intriguing realm of heavy music represented an existential challenge to genre orthodoxy. Their crashing riffs and abrasive noise, fraught with themes of determinism and Cormac McCarthy-esque isolation, were a breath of apocalyptic air in an often stagnant world. But the most surprising aspect of their artfully constructed sound was that the duo utilized only samples and live drums to create it. Recorded in a garage in the “howling wastelands” of California, this was originally self-released by the band as a limited cassette in 2011, then as a limited CDr on Music Ruins Lives. Later that year it was remastered for a vinyl release by The Flenser. That version is long sold out and has become a sought-after collector’s item. Now it has been re-pressed on vinyl from the original master for the first time since its initial run with brand new artwork. “The California duo Wreck and Reference strip away the basics of metal, redefining the genre even as they sit outside it.” —Pitchfork “Weirdly heavy and unnerving.” —NPR

Panopticon

Social Disservices

Flenser

***PANOPTICON is the brainchild of one AUSTIN LUNDR, and has garnered considerable attention and critical acclaim for the project’s raw, atmospheric blend of black metal, crust, post-rock, and Appalachian folk. Aquarius Records have lauded them as “crusty weirdo mathy abstruse black metal, a buzzing blasting pounding onslaught of Pagan fury, rife with samples and all matter of strange sonic filigree,” and their description isn’t far off. Whereas Panopticon’s On the Subject of Mortality was an internal mediation on death, and Panopticon’s second album Collapse anticipated the decline of government infrastructure, Social Disservices lashes out against a broken social services infrastructure that imprisons a silent minority. Social Disservices continues the blackened crust of Panopticon’s previous effort but with a bit more darkness this time. Think black noise with a dose of forlorn gaze. This is Panopticon’s darkest record, and their most aggressive.

Loss / Mournful Congregation / Orthodox / Otesanek

Four Burials

Flenser

***Fo(u)r Burials is a lost classic of extreme doom, and has now finally, reverently been brought back into circulation by The Flenser. Featuring monolithic emissions from MOURNFUL CONGREGATION, LOSS, ORTHODOX and OTESANEK, this four-track album reeks of desolation, the gnashing of teeth and virulent decay. “Heavy” does not begin to do these songs justice, the riffs stumble and crawl through an acid bath of feedback and distortion, dragging themselves along on broken knees. Funereal horde Mournful Congregation hail from Australia, and recently released a much-hailed compilation album via 20 Buck Spin, as well as news of a brand-new full-length and virgin US tour. With Despond (Profound Lore), Nashville’s Loss released one of the most painfully beautiful and critically-acclaimed albums of 2010, entombing listeners with a richly melodic, flowing shroud of depression. Orthodox’s ultra-minimal, droning, ambient take on the traditional rites of doom bleeds forth from Spain and belies the myth that sun breeds contentment. Otesanek, now-defunct and much-missed, crawled out of the filth and desperation of Philadelphia; their sludgy, crusty, unbearably brutal sound remains unmatched today, The quartet of compositions on Fo(u)r Burials are all very different, yet drawn together by a shared atmosphere of longing, sadness and disgust for that which we call life. The cult of death is calling.

Bosse-de-nage

Ii

Flenser

***BACK IN PRINT AT A NEW LOWER PRICE!!! The follow up to minimalist black metal weirdos BOSSE-DE-NAGE’s self titled debut. This album was recorded in 2010 by JUSTIN WEIS and features a HUGE sound along with the Lousiville-styled post rock (think Slint not Godspeed) and black metal weirdness that made Bosse-de-Nage’s debut a divisive genre defying classic. This is black metal, but black metal tinged with 20th century minimalism and outlandish vocals.

Palace Of Worms

Forgotten

Flenser

***The Forgotten is a step into hateful black metal orthodoxy. In this second release PALACE OF WORMS’ only member BALAN shits on the post rock influence that drenched his first release The Decaying Despot presenting a more straightforward thrashed manifesto of self hatred which in moments regresses into the more rocking territory normally occupied by European bands like Watain.

Bosse-de-nage

S/t

Flenser

First time on vinyl! Over the last decade, SF Bay Area’s Bosse-de-Nage has operated at the forefront of the post-black metal movement, and with albums like All Fours and Further Still, the band cemented their place as touchstones of the genre. Their self-titled debut—an early foray in the blackgaze sound—was recorded in 2007, but not officially released until 2010. The CD version of the album was one of The Flenser’s first releases, and a vinyl edition has always been a critical omission in both the band’s and the label’s catalogs. Remastered and sounding better than ever.  “A circling Venn diagram where math rock and black metal meet.” —SPIN  “Bosse-De-Nage has raised the art of metal lyrics to a whole new level.” —Noisey/Vice  “The group had a knack for mixing explosive post-punk and black metal.” —Pitchfork

Ghast

May The Curse Bind

Flenser

***NOW AVAILABLE!!! Wales group GHAST’s monument to black doom on double vinyl. Also includes that Ghast portion of the 2007 split with Helvett. “Ghast are an altogether more bleak proposition, playing a style of music that squats nihilistically between black metal and doom. May the Curse Bind delivers five tracks of hopeless and despondent metal designed to leave you feeling crushed and alone in a bottomless pit of misanthropy. The album is full of nastiness, a real dark sense of spite, that is particularly well conveyed by the shrieking vocals of the cryptically monikored ARRRRRRACH. The production manages that difficult trick of being necrotic enough to sound like death whilst still clear enough that everything comes through without too much effort. The tracks on May the Curse Bind are long, meandering things which derive most of their power from monomaniac riffs ground out over and over again until the listener is bludgeoned into submission, before changing tempo and doing the same thing again.”—Onemetal.com

Necrite

Sic Transit Gloria Mundi

Flenser

***NOW AVAILABLE!!! After five demos and six years of anticipation, Bay Area black metal tyrants NECRITE have finally unleashed their debut curse upon us: Sic Transit Gloria Mundi. Seamlessly fusing elements of droning doom, funeral ambience, and thrashing black metal, Sic Transit Gloria Mundi is a monument in the legacy of West Coast black metal along with the likes of Weakling’s Dead as Dreams and Leviathan’s Tenth Sublevel of Suicide. Necrite has created something very special and very creepy—Sic Transit Gloria Mundi is 66 minutes of horrified ambient black metal that sounds like it was written by evil people in a black cave where very bad things happen

Pale Chalice

Afflicting The Dichotomy Of Trepid Creation

Flenser

***Progagating intensely memorable yet brutal riffs, devoid of filler, the band's lyrics are dark and abstract, with influences which range from introverted psychosis to dimensional anomalies. Recorded at Death Midi Soundlab by NAVENE KOPERWEIS (drummer for Animals as Leaders), the expansive foursong Afflicting The Dichotomy Of Trepid Creation EP captures nearly half-an-hour of this fairly new yet wholly ripened act's honed, black metal skills, bearing more content and gritty traction than many full-length releases from the genre we'll see released throughout the coming year. The outfit that would become PALE CHALICE was born as 2008 was dying off, essentially bearing three founding members: ORAM EVAD, MASTHANTRIC NODRAB and BANEIST NONRUTIN. A plethora of bassists and vocalists persisted through the years, until early 2010, when EPHEMERAL DOMIGNOSTIKA (MASTERY, PANDISCORDIAN NECROGENESIS, ex-HORN OF DAGOTH) and GROBAHN HUV were added as permanent members. 28-minutes of expertly executed and well written black bile performed with more conviction than one-hundred ‘standard black metal bands’ of today.

Panopticon / Skagos

Skagos / Panopticon

Flenser

***NOW AVAILABLE!!! SKAGOS deliver a 27-plus-minute long Cascadian manifesto that is lyrically complex and genre confounding. PANOPTICON unleash 24 minutes of raw introspection and reproach of western values swirled into a meditation of facing ones own mortality Presented in a digipack CD. The artwork is made of photographs that BEKAH LUNDR took in Norway and have a very rich saturated feel. Logos and additional designs are printed over the artwork in UV gloss so you can enjoy the images without much getting between you and the artwork.