CVLT Nation’s Top Six Apocalyptic Blues Releases of 2012

It seem to be good times for rather bad moods. As the economical and social climate sharpens up, artistic formulations of the decline refine. These Top 6 Apocalyptic Blues albums of 2012 drag you deep into the realm of shades, lead you around Dystopia, confront you with unsettling End Time scenarios.

DEMDIKE STARE Elemental Part Three: Rose (Modern Love)
On top of the list has to be DEMDIKE STARE. Part Three of the “Elemental” series again brilliantly blends crystal clear techno fragments and dirty dark ambient textures. With its haunting grooves, unsettling background swirls and overall pitch black atmospheres, the British duo of Sean Canty and Miles Whittaker is the ultimate source for sonic dystopia for years now. Visionary.

OM Advaitic Songs (Drag City)
OM drag their sludgy mantras through diverse fog patches of spirituality. They exquisitly combine the desperation of doom, the intensity of drone, the roughness of stoner rock, Hindu philosophy, Sufi mysticism and Jodorowsky weirdness with their general quest for enlightment. With the outstanding “Advaitic Songs”, OM has finally become the perfect synthesis of SLEEP (the old band of bassist Al Cisneros) and GRAILS (drummer Emil Amos’s other band). Meditative.

RAIME Quarter Turns Over A Living Line (Blackest Ever Black)
If you’re interested in bleak sonic dystopia and open to rather avantgardistic sound explorations, you’ve probably heard of London duo RAIME already. Their debut album “Quarter Turns Over A Living Line” assembles fragments of industrial, techno, dark ambient and drone to form pitch black sound adventures. Released by Blackest Ever Black –no need for further words. Brilliant.

THEOLOGIAN The Chasms Of My Heart (Crucial Blast)
Harsh noise constructions made of dark ambient, drone metal and industrial fragments are the preferred territories of Lee M. Bartow alias THEOLOGIAN (also likely to be known as LEECH and the man behind Annihilvs Power Electronix). On “The Chasms Of My Heart”, the New York native impresses with monumental, apocalyptic sound clouds, composed of synthetic swirls, scratchy textures and pounding rhythms. Remarkable.

HORSEBACK “Half Blood” (Relapse)
The rock/drone interweavings of HORSEBACK draw monochromatic, psychedelic pictures that show clouds of misery, mists of lunacy and veils of gloom. In black metallic atmosphere, their third album “Half Blood” shreds, ties and merges fragments of doom rock, dull drones, Krautrock eccentricity and folky earthiness. Hypnotic.

SUTEKH HEXEN Behind The Throne (Magic Bullet)
SUTEKH HEXEN drown the ailing world in jet-black, droning texture madness. Thick smoke obscures the boundaries between noise, dark ambient and black metal. Massive guitar drones, noisy synth textures and frightening shouting create exquisitely layered, perpetually changing and extremly harsh sound structures in the periphery of tonality. Breathtaking.