Amplified is a weekly column focusing on new and emerging artists. Got a band that fits the bill? Email amplified@metalinsider.net.
Although Metal Insider HQ managed to go unburied in this week’s blizzard, some of you further into the deep, grim North weren’t so lucky. For those still shoveling themselves out, you’ll need some atmospheric, melancholy black metal to help get into the proper spirit. Lamentations of the Ashen are here to do just that with their upcoming second record, Libertine Cyst. The record’s twelve-minute mouthful of an opening track, “A Profane Illvmination(Convvlsionaries Ov Temporal Heterodoxy),” takes nearly five minutes to truly get off the ground with gradually ramping ambience, before a smattering of drums and some massive doom metal chords usher us into a blast of depressive black metal horror, a dreamy, seasick midsection, and a sludge-meets-post-rock ending. It’s incredibly intense, even when the band is in more experimental territory, and the lengthy build-up make those blasts hit even harder. Check out “A Profound Illvmination” below, and look out for Libertine Cyst on March 3rd! If you’re too impatient, you can check out their entire first record, EKIMMV on Bandcamp while you wait.
