VIDEO PREMIERE: Toronto based doom duo ITUS debut "Primordial"

Toronto’s ITUS is the latest in Canadian doom featuring heavy, brooding and psychedelic tones meshed with horror-inspired sounds. They have been toiling away, working on their debut EP "Primordial" set to be released on March 13, 2020. 

Atmospheric and energetic, this album is a step in a new musical direction for the duo of Brandon Lucking and Reinier Vandenbosch, and they are encouraged that the reception for their latest endeavour will be well received.  Today at THE SLUDGELORD we are debuting the title track from their EP and band had following to say about it below 

"This is the first single from Itus. Primordial uses the idea of coming out of a euphoric bliss into a hellish existence. Its lyrics comment on what forces within people work to pull society back down to chaos. This is the most aggressive song on the EP with its crisp, and aggressive guitar tones that really make it stand out from the other songs. The constant growing and changing of the layers of guitars leading to the breakdown at the end are meant to portray an increasing sense of unrest and panic."

Band info:  Facebook

ALBUM REVIEW: Ulvesang, "The Hunt"

By: Richard Maw

Album Type: Full Length

Date Released: 16/03/2018

Label: Nordvis

The Hunt is bleak, dark and quite beautiful, highly evocative of nature and all that is fresh and clean. If this sounds like your kind of thing, it will be. This is a fantastic record.

“The Hunt” CD//DD//LP track listing:

1). Invocation

2). The Trial

3). The Dance

4). The End

5). The Hunt

6). The Break

7). The Run

8). The Gloom

9). The Truth

10). Močvara/Мочвара

The Review:

Ulvesang play folk- or neofolk/dark folk to be more accurate and hail not from Sweden or Norway but from Canada- still the Frozen North, so quite fitting. The two piece specialise in very dark but pretty acoustic textures. Being as this is an instrumental work (or without lyrics at least), what images it conjures up are a matter for the individual listener, but I would imagine that many listeners would find the sound and atmosphere here to be evocative of the forest, leaf and stream and all that is natural.

It is perhaps odd to some that this might fit right in alongside black metal, but not for me. It is bleak, it is dark, it is quite beautiful- similar to the very best of the black metal genre. Fans of Winterfylleth, eagerly awaiting their forthcoming acoustic record, and fans of the more ethereal work of Ulver and so on will find much to enjoy here.

The opening intro of “Invocation” sets the mood and the mood does not falter from there on, whether it be the bitter-sweet “The Trial” or the wistfully bleak “The End”- the textures are richly dark. However, the feel is not necessarily cold; there is melancholy and bleakness but the album is never grim; maudlin might be a better description. The ten tracks are all highly evocative of nature and all that is fresh and clean. If this sounds like your kind of thing, it will be. A fantastic record.

“The Hunt” is available here

Band info: bandcamp || facebook