Seattle doom/sludge trio DEATHCAVE will release their aptly titled II EP this April via Satanik Royalty Records, today unveiling the offering’s opening psalm, the epic “Birch Trees Are Bones”.
On a purely visceral level, DEATHCAVE is a kaleidoscope of metallic delights — dizzying peaks of cosmic doom, rabid blasts of black metal, salivatory slabs of bottom feeder sludge, and triumphant gales of galloping thrash. But beyond the gut-level gratification of the trio’s riff feasts is a more crucial tier of expression: a transcendental exploration of the inner self through sonic extremes. On their second EP, II, DEATHCAVE pushes their music to greater dynamic heights while uncovering and purging their subconscious despair.
When dealt with the double whammy of pandemic blues and the end of a long-term relationship in early 2021, bassist Michael Freiburger (Throne Of Bone, Brain Scraper) retreated to the woods and ingested “a heroic dose of psychedelics” in attempt to recalibrate. “While I was peaking and in fractal-vision mode, I couldn’t stop staring at the birch trees across the river,” Freiburger says of the experience. The trip was a transformative journey full of revelations and enlightenment, and it prompted DEATHCAVE’s magnum opus, “Birch Trees Are Bones.”
Across its twelve minutes, “Birch Trees Are Bones” traverses apocalyptic dirges, machine-gun tempo tremolo attacks, and epic Cascadian crescendos. Expertly captured by Matt Bayles (Mastodon, ISIS) at Studio Litho, the opening track is a definitive manifestation of the band’s mission — using glacier-sized riffs to frame man’s insignificance against the natural world and employing crushing volume as a battle cry against suffering.
The vision quest of 2021 was abetted by Black Sabbath, so it only made sense for DEATHCAVE to pay homage to the original dark-arts voyagers with a beefed-up version of “The Writ.” Together, these two tracks provide the yin yang of DEATHCAVE’s modus operandi — the cleansing power of metal and the celebratory spirit of the big riff.
Writes Everything Is Noise of “Birch Trees Are Bones” in part, “The ravaging but nearly post-metal-esque section that ensues is captivating as hell, weaving the atmosphere together and apart in a fluent manner for a good while, until another relentless drum fill and… blast beats? Yeah, fucking blast beats. Before you know it, you’re in the middle of a whirlwind of agony and distress that is equally earth-shattering as any of the other parts on the track, but oh so much more…”
