We’ve been following, and helping spread the word about, the Montreal death metal band Samskaras since 2014, premiering both a track from their debut single Consecrate and a song from their 2017 EP, Asunder. Now this talented duo — vocalist/guitarist/bassist Eric Burnet (ex-Derelict, Unburnt) and drummer Alex Dupras (Unhuman, Teramobil) — have recorded a new EP, and once again it’s our pleasure to premiere a song from it.
The new EP, Lithification, is set for release on October 26th and includes four tracks recorded with Cryptopsy’s Chris Donaldson at The Grid Studio in Montreal. The music represents a further stylistic expansion of the sounds displayed on previous releases, adding doses of black metal, doom, and even deathcore into the band’s head-spinning framework of progressive tech-death.
The song we have for you today, “Alignment“, is vicious and bleak at its core, and a thoroughly spine-tingling experience. Warped chiming reverberations introduce the track over a heavyweight rhythm line, but it’s not long before the song surges ahead through a mix of galloping, jolting, and blasting drum discharges, combined with an array of pulsating, braying, and blizzard-like chords, and brutally harsh growls.
Imperious fanfares burst from the song, along with flickering arpeggios indicative of derangement, and quasi-clean vocals that match the intensity of the music (bringing to mind the surprising vocal contrasts provided by Dave Hunt in the music of Anaal Nathrakh).
With regard to the current state of their musical explorations as revealed through the new EP as a whole, Samskaras make reference not only to the inspiration of such fellow Québécois artists as Gorguts, Neuraxis, Quo Vadis, Cryptopsy, and Despised Icon, but also to the sounds of such bands as the afore-mentioned Anaal Nathrakh, Converge, Wood Of Ypres, Cattle Decapitation, and Enslaved.
Thematically, the EP is, in Eric Burnet‘s words, “mostly about the struggle between anger and self-control”. “It’s direct and vicious”, he tells us, “but also intensely emotional. The title itself is the geological process by which rock is created through heat and pressure. The question I’m pondering is, how hard do our life experiences make us, and when does that stop being a healthy way to cope?”
Look for Lithification as a digital release on October 26th. Pre-order options will become available through Bandcamp. Watch the following spaces for further info:
Bandcamp:
https://samskarasmetal.bandcamp.com/
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/samskarasmetal
TRACK LIST:
1. Reconciliation
2. As Warriors
3. Alignment
4. À Deux Mains