By Charlie Maybee
DC based instrumental metal band, STELLAR DEATH, is back with a new EP titled Sentient (Chapter 1). Full of industrial and prog metal influences and modern post-rock tendencies, this is a collection of songs that fully embraces a cosmic level of brutality that crashes among the stars.
There’s a large cinematic scope to the band’s sound in general, and the opening track “Emergence” takes its time to fully display its expansive and fluid shape. For fans of epic action video game soundtracks, this will sound like home. It charges forward with near reckless abandon hurtling through time and space like a massive meteor, but we also get to experience the aftermath of its planetary collision as the song takes a reflective turn.
The remaining tracks, “I Am” and “Capacity To Suffer” are equally as devastating and thrilling in their sci-fi soaked ambience. STELLAR DEATH is clearly unafraid of the more destructive forces in this world, and it’s fascinating to hear them sonically manifest the sprawling dissonance of cosmic horrors and human folly. The lack of language or text manages to highlight this even more by being focused purely on effect and impact rather than clarity of message in a literal sense. The listener must resign themselves to the demolition that this music so clearly craves.
Sentient (Chapter 1) is available on major streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music. Find this and more great music on the Alchemical Records Multigenre Mixture playlist on Spotify.
Charlie Maybee is a dancer, musician, educator, and writer based in Charleston, South Carolina who currently teaches with the Dance Program at the College of Charleston. His primary work as an artist is with his performing collective, Polymath Performance Project, through which he makes interdisciplinary performance art that centers tap dance as the primary medium of expression and research. He also currently plays rhythm guitar for the Charleston-based punk band, Anergy, and releases music as a solo artist under the name Nox Eterna.
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Alchemical Records is a Washington, D.C. based music publication. We cover the Washington, D.C., Baltimore and Richmond, VA metro area music scenes, including band interviews, articles about your favorite musicians, new music and concert dates.
