Oryx
photo by Alvino Salcedo

Stream Denver sludge metallers Oryx's new song "Last Breath" off 'Lamenting A Dead World'

As mentioned, Denver sludge metallers Oryx are following 2018’s Stolen Absolution (and that same year’s Born Into Madness EP) with their third full-length album, Lamenting A Dead World, on April 30 via Translation Loss (pre-order). The album features guest vocals by Erika Osterhout (Scolex, Chthonic Deity) on recent single “Misery,” guest “aural textures” on the title track by Ethan McCarthy (Primitive Man, Many Blessings), and guest synth and “space conjuring” on “Oblivion” by Paul Riedl (Blood Incantation, Spectral Voice), and it was recorded by Ben Romsdahl of the now-defunct Clinging To The Trees Of A Forest Fire (who’s also worked with Primitive Man, Of Feather And Bone, and more) and mixed and mastered by Greg Wilkinson (High On Fire, Necrot, etc). Speaking about the album’s themes, guitarist/vocalist Tommy Davis says:

Lamenting A Dead World was born from the eye of the storm. America in all of its self-indulgent splendor showed the rest of the world its true perversion, insolence, and complete lack of regard for human life during the 2020 pandemic and economic crisis. The thin veil of society cracked under pressure and the realm of egocentric mania showed its ugly face in what seemed like an unprecedented low point for our modern civilization. But this dark underbelly of humanity is nothing we haven’t seen throughout centuries of religious tirades turned into bloody, endless and overlapping wars. This album was written as a reflection on the insanity of what it means to justify existence in the age of self-diluted piety.

Following “Misery,” we’re premiering second single “Last Breath,” and this one’s yet another dose of towering, lengthy, epic, post-sludge metal. It’s equal parts beautiful/atmospheric and crushingly heavy, and the evilness is upped by the dual-vocal approach of harsh, high-pitched shrieks and guttural, death metal-tinged growls. It’s a hell of a song, which Tommy says is “a rumination on the Earth responding to humanity parasitically taking from it without constraint or care. Wandering in mortal dissolution, our vanquish is certain death.”

Listen to “Last Breath” as well as previous single “Misery” below.

Oryx

Tracklist
1. Contempt
2. Misery
3. Last Breath
4. Lamenting A Dead World
5. Oblivion

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