#209 | Album Review | StarGazer – Psychic Secretions

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Hello, gazers of the void! I hope all is well in your corners of the world. This week, Ryan and I journey into an atmospheric realm of black and death metal epicness conjured by the heavy, intriguing, and downright heroic album that is StarGazer’s latest opus, Psychic Secretions. As per usual, Ryan and I dork the hell out on a variety of the record’s timbres, particularly how the bass fucking decimates throughout its duration (insert bow now-now). The music/track titles inspired the bizarre concept of a goblin cult arriving on the back of a comet, alongside the origin story of a new FCU character, Chadwick the Golden Slump. We also go into ramblings about movie battles and other mystical warfare as we meander through our ramblings on the album. (I was fully addicted to Valheim at the time of recording, so that tracks.)

Psychic Secretions features a solid concept where each track belongs in the same universe, yet this does not prevent StarGazer from crafting tracks that expand into all kinds of sonic territories, featuring moments of frigid and airy northern light-flickering riffs, or galloping, bone-bashing drum marches. You even get moments of progressive sweeps that pair well with the harsher elements. The vocals take on various theatric entities; I pictured an evil necromancer, an ageless toad (as suggested by the album’s lyric), and eventually, my evil cult leader goblin warlord. Once again, some of the grooves and bass lines on this record are pure, undiluted magnificence. Overall, Psychic Secretions is a perfect blend of darkened prowess and stunning enchantments.

StarGazer hails from Adelaide, Australia. Psychic Secretions is their fourth full-length album, which released on February 1st, 2021. This avante-garde extreme metal behemoth has existed since 1995, and throughout the decades, they have conjured handfuls of demos, splits, and EPs. The trio’s lineup consists of The Serpent Inquisitor (Guitars/Vocals), The Great Righteous Destroyer (Bass/Vocals), and Khronomancer (Drums)—stage names that only further the feeling of mysticism while experiencing the music.

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You can support StarGazer by purchasing Psychic Secretions via their Bandcamp page. You can also follow them on Facebook. Do yourself a favor and listen to the rest of their discography! 

If you’d like to support us beyond listening to our podcast, you can do so by becoming a patron on our Patreon page. There you can read all of our notes for each album review episode we publish and gain early access to every episode before its official release.

Also, if you’re keen on chatting music, shooting us some recommendations, or talking about other forms of media (videogames, films, etc.), please feel free to join us on our Discord server. In our next episode, we will be chatting about the emotion-teeming experimental metal album, Songs for the Enamel Queen, by Black Sheep Wall.

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