Arepo (ambient duo w/ mems of Bleach Everything, City of Caterpillar, etc) prep debut LP (listen)

March 24, 2021

Ryan Parrish (ex-City of Caterpillar, ex-Darkest Hour, Iron Reagan) and Graham Scala have both been very busy lately. Their band Bleach Everything recently put out a two-song single, and Ryan’s new band Terminal Bliss (with pg.99/Pygmy Lush members) recently released their killer debut EP Brute Err/ata, while Graham also put out music with Collapse Culture. The pair are also set to release an ambient album as Arepo this Friday (3/26) via Pax Aeternum (pre-order), and we’re premiering a full stream of the album in this post.

“Though Ryan and I have worked together on a lot of projects already, I’m particularly excited about this one because it’s the first time we’ve let ourselves explore some of the further extremes of our taste with no constraints or expectations placed upon what we came up with,” Graham tells us. “It covers a lot of ground and it may not always be an easy or a comfortable listen but it’s likely the closest anyone will come to hearing what the inside of our heads sounds like.”

The album’s Bandcamp description also adds some more context:

Arepo was conceived initially as an outlet for the sort of ambient music that the two share a deep and abiding love of but the end result was something stranger, darker, and less easily categorizable. In their debut album, out March 26th on Pax Aeternum, billowing washes of synth undergird shredded instrument loops in a disorienting whole that draws on dark ambient electronics, electro-acoustic conceptual processes, and granular synthesis explorations with additional violin contributions from multi-instrumentalist Bonnie Cosby helping to accentuate the album’s pensive, cinematic atmosphere.

Immerse yourself in the sounds of this LP by streaming it below…

<a href="https://arepocollective.bandcamp.com/album/s-t-7">S/T by Arepo</a>

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Recent Metal Album Reviews

Eyehategod – A History of Nomadic Behavior

When Eyehategod returned in 2014 with a self-titled album -- their first new LP in 14 years -- it wasn't just a good comeback; it was some of the most fired-up music in their discography. Eyehategod's Southern-fried take on sludge metal helped define the genre in the 1990s, and it seems like the more people consider them pioneers, the more they like to remind us where they came from. As most sludge fans know, the genre came from punk, and if you ask EHG frontman Mike IX Williams what he's listening to or what he's influenced by, he's more likely to start naming off punk bands than metal ones. Eyehategod's self-titled album was more overtly punk than just about anything the band released in the '90s, and the new A History of Nomadic Behavior picks up right where the last album left off. It's still got plenty of fuzzed-out, Southern, bluesy vibes, but it recalls the proto-sludge of Black Flag's My War more directly than it recalls the '90s sludge metal that EHG themselves helped create. Not many legendary bands feel even more punk 30 years into their career than they did on day one, but not many bands are Eyehategod.

Enforced – Kill Grid

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You can also pick up Kill Grid on black vinyl in our shop.

Frozen Soul – Crypt of Ice

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Portrayal of Guilt – We Are Always Alone

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Gatecreeper – An Unexpected Reality

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It's a brief record -- longer than a typical EP but the band isn't considering it a full-length -- that was entirely written and recorded during the pandemic, and it's split into two distinct halves. Side one pushes Gatecreeper's sound in a faster direction than ever before, with seven tracks that clock in around or under a minute each and dive further into grind, punk, and hardcore than Gatecreeper ever have before. "We usually have a hard rule in Gatecreeper that we don’t have blast beats," vocalist Chase Mason says. "But for the first side of this record we lifted that rule and ran with it." Chase cites such influences as Napalm Death, Totalitär, Terrorizer and Master for side one, and that should give you a pretty good idea of what to expect, but Gatecreeper don't just regurgitate those influences. They make it their own and the result is the most fired-up, whiplash-inducing music they've ever written.

Side two pushes their sound to the opposite extreme, with one long 11-minute death-doom song that Chase says was inspired by Mournful Congregation, Paradise Lost, Evoken and Katatonia. Gatecreeper have hinted at doomier stuff before, but they've never embraced it as fully as they do here, and they prove to sound just as intense when they're ultra-slow as they do when they're ultra fast.

Chase also adds that the concept of the album was inspired by Black Flag's groundbreaking My War, which had fast hardcore songs on side one and slower songs that helped pioneer sludge metal on side two. "When I was getting really into sludge and stoner metal like the Melvins and Eyehategod, they always referenced the B-side of My War," Chase said. "Hearing bands talk about not just a record but a specific side of a record, I thought that was really cool and it always stuck with me."

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You can also pick up Mirrors on awesome-looking red/black swirl vinyl in our shop.

Tribulation – Where The Gloom Becomes Sound

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Cult of Luna – The Raging River

Cult of Luna took some time off after releasing 2013's Vertikal and then did a collaboration with Julie Christmas before making a strong comeback on 2019's A Dawn To Fear, which rivaled the peaks of their classic 2000s era. They're now keeping that momentum going with the five-song The Raging River EP, which the band says "feels more like a bridge. A midpoint that needs to be crossed so we can finish what we started with 2019's A Dawn to Fear." We look forward to finding out what's on the other side of the bridge (a new full-length?), but meanwhile, these five songs are as towering as anything on A Dawn to Fear. Cult of Luna are masters at sludgy post-metal that's as heavy as it is beautiful, and these songs are no exception. The first two and the last two tracks find them doing what they've always done best, but there's a much different treat in the middle: "Inside of a Dream," a somber, atmospheric song with guest lead vocals by the legendary Mark Lanegan. Taken on its own, you'd never guess it was a Cult of Luna song, but as the centerpiece of this EP, it works perfectly within the context of their trademark intensity. Cult of Luna are a great band on their own, but as proven on that Julie Christmas LP and again with this Mark Lanegan song, they really know how to take a backseat and turn the spotlight over to someone else when the moment calls for it.

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