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Good morning, afternoon, or night! While Connor basks in some rays, sipping brews alongside a lazy creek up near Sisters, Oregon, I’m down here in California visiting family. A geographical swap for the long weekend, if you will.
In this week’s episode, Connor and I (mostly Connor) ponder our self-diagnoses with impostor syndrome, a key theme underpinning the sophomore LP, The Violet Grim, from New York’s one-man doomgaze project, Gloomseeker. We have been endeavoring to lighten the mood with albums we discuss during this time of year as we often couple sweltering summer heat with frenzied punk, hardcore, and noise rock. However, we stray from that sun-gilded cobblestone pathway here. Instead, we found ourselves paralyzed in the umbrage of a bottomless well, suffocating in the throes of anxiety with an ever so infrequent glimmer of hope. Sounds captivating, yes?
As the album title (and moniker) suggests, The Violet Grim is a dreary stupor through the dwindling of life and subsequent passing into death. It’s rife with reverb, which often masks Gloomseeker’s vocals. In the same breath, the ponderous vibrations distort the sundry of instrumental layers into nebulous clouds of melancholy. Primordial industrial rhythms shape the spine of each composition. They are stifled in biting acidic resonances, yet somehow, each strike is rendered palatable due to the atmospheric undertow subsuming them. Moreover, the rare post-rock protrusion makes for a sobering moment or two to self-reflect amidst the dour wandering.
I don’t want to spoil all of the points we touch on in this review, so I will refrain from divulging further. You can expect our usual non-sensical tangents, in addition to some personal reflections fueled by the poignant aura percolating from this record. That being said, we sincerely hope you enjoy our exchange. Thank you so much for tuning in!
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You can obtain a digital copy of The Violet Grim via Gloomseeker’s Bandcamp page. There, you can also experience his debut, self-titled LP. Follow him on Facebook and Instagram to stay in the loop on new developments from his umbra.
If you’d like to support us beyond listening to our podcast, you can do so by becoming a patron on our Patreon page where you can read all of the notes we typed in preparation for album reviews and gain early access to upcoming episodes before their official release. If Patreon isn’t your jam, we recently set up an FCU Venmo account (@From-Corners-Unknown) and a Ko-Fi account in case you want to support us via other channels.
In two week’s time, we’ll be dropping an interview with Mark Norgate, the mastermind behind the epic experimental post-metal project known as Dawnwalker. Take care ’til then!
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