ninehertz

Here’s a nasty sounding curio out of Pittsburgh, weird too and that’s what makes it all the more interesting. Susurrant Void, a two-piece, are primarily death-doom, but even for all the strangeness and experimentalism that sub-genre can throw up from time to time, this EP has its moments where they truly test that to its extremes.

There are just four songs, the first a short-ish intro of noise that could be severe winds in the arctic, or a mass explosion of a rocket launch; maddening effects making for an uncomfortable listen ahead of the following trio of nine-minute tracks. The first of those is Withering Epiphanies, eerily mystical yet in a decaying manner, a bad trip, death-doom nightmare world. It is stagnant-slow and otherworldly in its slight discordance. The listening experience sends you off kilter somewhat, before a chugging riff pulls you back from the edge with a bit of recognisable normality, but only as a respite in the middle before returning to the drowsy death churn.

Multidimensional Permeations has a dread-building opening, achingly lethargic, slithering along the floor encumbered by a stagnant mass, before burying down into haunted backing noises, then into gloomy and more traditional death-doom at the funeral doom end of the scale. The final track is more “normal”, stripped down to pure funeral doom, a really painful, seemingly unending and totally gratifying drawn-out plod to the EP’s close.

Death-doom is at its best when it is swampy, creepy or plain weird – this has all those elements, particularly the latter couple of characteristics. I can’t help but relate it to a waking daydream where you’re constantly unsure of what is reality, leaving you in an imbalanced state. It makes for a really fascinating listen, an excellent exercise in death doom extremity.