SWAMP WITCH: Suffocating Doom Unit Streams "Slither Into The Circle" Via The Obelisk




West Coast death doom collective SWAMP WITCH are preparing to unleash the decaying sounds of their The Slithering Bog full-length on vinyl via Tribunal Of The Axe. Captured during July 2014 at Earhammer Studios in Oakland, California by Greg Wilkinson (Brainoil, Annihilation Time, Noothgrush, et al) and mastered at Trakworx in San Francisco by Justin Weiss (Ludicra, Slough Feg, Cormorant, et al), the offering was initially released on cassette last year via Transylvanian Tapes.

In advance of its wax release, today The Obelisk is streaming "Slither Into The Circle," issuing of the offering, "Though the Californian death-doom outfit's second full-length was released on cassette in 2015... the new version, mastered for vinyl and encompassing in its atmospheric density such that it makes even the air it fills seem heavier, is the first on a vinyl format. Built of two songs on its first side and four on its second, it's a record that revels in the seemingly wretched. Cave-echo growls, lumbering riffs, and fervent plod are conjured with a depth of low end that feels sludged in its roots, but has turned to something even more rotten and vicious and crawling, and as the rolling 'Strange Cults' leads the way into the trenches that follow, it is the utter hopelessness of the thing that stands out most. It's like that part of the sea where the fish had to evolve their own light because the sun couldn't get down that far."

Sink deep into the harrowing sounds of "Slither Into The Circle" at THIS LOCATION.

The Slithering Bog will come available on three color variants (black, purple haze, and swamp green). For preorders visit THIS LOCATION.
  
SWAMP WITCH is the culmination of psychedelic substances, occult practices, and a collective interest in dark, strange, and ultimately hallucinogenic music originally devised with the sole intent to commit and record ritualistic extremities through heavy music only for the night of 9/9/09. In the aftermath, members found themselves pressed to continue the slow-burning drudgery sparked on that September ninth into the months that followed, leading to shows, recordings, band members towing themselves out of the smog from Central Valley, California and into Oakland (and Arcata, respectively) and finally, the vinyl release that recollects the original material of that evening: Gnosis.
   
The punishing, murky layers protruding from 2011's Gnosis recordings drip with the trance-laden, drug-induced efforts of '70s psychedelia compressed into the claustrophobic toil and painful repetition of '90s sludge. This concept of Gnosis actually seems more akin to H. P. Lovecraft's ideas of psychosis and derealization as the only thing the feeble human mind can experience when confronting truth (cosmicism), as opposed to gnosis in the classic, transcendental sense of the term. In other words, it's fucked up.

While Gnosis was being released on cassette, and finally, vinyl, SWAMP WITCH had already begun preparing material for what was to become the six claustrophobic tracks that make up The Slithering Bog. To help achieve this, former drummer Dirk V took up second guitar duties and helped further emphasize the psychedelic undertones heard in Gnosis, while collaborator Adam T. took on drums. The end result of almost two years of writing proved worthy, as warped landscapes and fungal textures resting somewhere between dream-like and sleep paralysis culminated into The Slithering Bog recording of late 2014.




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