There is always slower, and there is always heavier. Unearthly Trance are not the slowest, nor are they the heaviest, but they give it a damn good shot. Much of this record carries with it the malignant stench of Burning Witch, with enormous, atonal chords struck seemingly at random as the world’s biggest drum beats hollowly in the background and vocals shuffle crazily between fevered whispers, sickening black metal growls and a monstrous howl that sounds like a demonic ape being cast down into some bottomless chasm. These elongated, murky dirges find the band caught on some frozen, barren plain between the lands of Grief and Khanate, part of an endless twilit struggle between a riff-wielding ungod and the sinuous powers of the high beast of drone. On occasion the speed creeps sluggishly toward a heaving metallic blast a la High on Fire, grotesque riffs tumbling from battered instruments like deep sea creatures shaken from a net, writhing, snapping and seeking a soft fleshy throat to fasten onto. These transitions, from blighted, painstaking sloth to lumbering metal are seamless and sublime, adding layers and depths that swaddle the listener like a funeral shroud.
Maybe not reaching the levels of fucked up wretchedness certain souls might hope for, Unearthly Trance never quite tip themselves over the brink into abject despair. Nonetheless, ‘Season of Séance…’ is one of the more punishing exercises in doom-sodden carnage I’ve had the pleasure to be crushed by in recent days. Brutal, atypical and mercilessly engaging. One can but hope that these bastards continue to have a great many more bad drug experiences if songs like these are going to be the result.