With a lustrous ambient soundtrack of stormy weather threatening TBMG's home, we have a new episode leaning heavily on extreme metal augmented with influences from other spheres of 00s music. Prepare to get weird and drunk dial your old art school girlfriend- we're heading straight to Brooklyn with a lot of this material, but don't fret- there's plenty of great stuff to be found. First off, a look at the new EP by Embodied Torment, an ultra-brutal death metal TDMG favorite, who rise from their gwave with no less intensity but a much developed sense of elaborate, narrative songwriting.

First on the docket is the return of Colorado upstarts Astral Tomb, hot off the heels of 2022's "Soulgazer." This newest independent release, "Total Spiritual Death," is a highly experimental and divisive work which will inevitably split audiences on its quality. TDMG likes it a lot, TBMG sort of despises it, and what follows is a wild journey through 00s indie rock, old kosmische musik, and every possibly point in between- with, of course, plenty of Astral Tomb's crawlinggnawinghowling doomdeath intact.

Following this is a look at last year's record by Shroud of Despondency, Milwaukee-based experimental/progressive black metallers with affiliations to Prezir, an aggressive black/death/thrash blend we covered some years back. SoD centers on late 90s/early 00s symphonic black metal colored by intense streaks of screamo, neofolk, and industrial. Easy listening this is not, but attention paid is highly rewarded by incredible harmonic density and a potent, unnerving emotional vulnerability. WE SEEK BAD FEELINGS EXCLUSIVELY ON TERMINUS.

0:00:00 - Intro/Embodied Torment - Archaic Bloodshed (New Standard Elite)

0:25:35 - Astral Tomb - Total Spiritual Death (Independent)

1:12:17 - Interlude - Eternal Suffering - “The Death in Your Eyes” fr. Echo of Lost Words (Inherited Suffering Records, 2010)

1:15:09 - Shroud of Despondency - Air of Abrasion (Independent)

1:54:50 - Outro - Anorexia Nervosa - “Mother Anorexia” fr. New Obscurantis Order (Osmose Productions, 2001)

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