Zapowiedź debiutu ILLWIND

 

On July 3rd internationally, Personal Records is proud to present Illwind's striking debut album, The Unfolding at the End of Light, on CD format.

Born under the gray skies and sea mist of Lima, capital of Peru, Illwind are a heavy doom band with influences ranging from black metal to stoner rock to post-punk, with a clear aim to march towards the darker side of existence. The quartet are forged from members of some of the top South American bands such as Reino Ermitaño, Cobra, Arcada, and Argul, making up a motley cauldron of different forces that propel Illwind forward under a common intent of will.

Illwind's public debut, the full-length The Unfolding at the End of Light, provides five original tracks which paint a somber underworld to dive into...and a closing cover of the Stooges' classic "I Wanna Be Your Dog" to climb back out of. On first blush, the album sounds stridently like a traditional doom record - lumbering heaviness, slow-yet-insistent rhythms, emotively clean vocals - but patience, like much orbiting the wider doom world, yields maximum immersion. From sometimes-unexpected bursts of first-wave-black speed to a grey-spiraling sort of melodicism not far from goth or shoegaze (or, think the Cure) to a pastoral-cum-heroic atmosphere that spiritually recalls Bathory's beloved Viking era, Illwind manage to inject their own idiosyncratic personality into a subgenre that's rigid for a reason.

Put another way, a more specific reading of Illwind's influences puts into perspective this particular personality: from Neurosis and Swans to Black Sabbath and '70s hard rock to Yob, Windhand, Monolord, Bellwitch, and Warning to Sonic Youth, Depeche Mode, or the aforementioned Stooges. This mélange of musical mapwork, distilling the four members' very musical beings, has truly given The Unfolding at the End of Light a relatively singular sound - equally ambient and extremely heavy, ominously moving yet dreamlike, and all of it with a surprisingly kaleidoscopic tint of melancholy. The album's richly analog production heightens this sensation and penetrates the listener to his core. Begin the trip of The Unfolding at the End of Light!

In the meantime, hear the brand-new track "Crimson Skies" HERE at Personal Records' Bandcamp. Preorder info can be found HERE. Cover and tracklisting are as follows:

Tracklisting for Illwind's The Unfolding at the End of Light

1. Crimson Skies [10:43]

2. Wanderer [5:29]

3. Portal [4:47]

4. God Of Sleep [8:55]

5. Lucifer's Mule [13:13]

6. I Wanna Be Your Dog [The Stooges cover] [4:25]