Way to go to Boston-based crushers Phantom Glue. Word came down just a bit ago that the four-piece have signed with Black Market Activities, the Metal Blade imprint helmed by Guy Kozowyk of The Red Chord. Phantom Glue‘s 2010 self-titled debut (review here) was a rager, so hopefully their new alliance gets them some roadtime as they prepare to unleash their second album, A War of Light Cones early next year.

The PR wire tells it thusly:

Black Market Activities signs PHANTOM GLUE

Black Market Activities officially announces its newest signing: Phantom Glue. BMA will release the band’s new album, A War of Light Cones, in early 2013.

From Boston, Massachusetts, Phantom Glue name The Jesus Lizard, Neurosis, and Trouble as key influences, pounding out what Exclaim Magazine has termed “a heated bastion of caustic riffs and unearthly girth”.

Beneath the band’s self-proclaimed “avalanche of distortion” lies a rich conceptual foundation where lyrics and artwork combine to evoke a Lovecraftian universe. Vocalist/guitarist Matt Oates, also the band’s lyricist and resident cover artist, describes new album A War of Light Cones as “a nightmare/occult alternate history of Colonial America”. Standout track “Perils”, for example — released in August on alt weekly The Boston Phoenix’s Born of Fire, Vol. 2 compilation, alongside other Boston bands like Doomriders — tells the tale of a trapper catching a creature whose pelt grants psychic gifts.

Phantom Glue’s second album and their first for BMA, A War of Light Cones was produced by Converge guitarist Kurt Ballou at GodCity Studio (Converge, Cave In, Today Is The Day). Ballou’s connection to Phantom Glue dates back to the 90s when he and Matt Oates were bandmates in The Huguenots.

Phantom Glue’s lineup is completed by guitarist Mike Gowell, bassist/vocalist Nick Wolf, and drummer Kyle Rasmussen.

BMA boss Guy Kozowyk states, “We are proud to welcome Phantom Glue into the BMA family. As someone who grew up in Boston and still lives in the area, it means a lot to me to have a strong New England contingent on BMA. With the recent Hivesmasher album and now Phantom Glue, we’re helping represent some of the exciting stuff going on here right now.”

There are no credits included with Phantom Glue’s self-titled Teenage Disco Bloodbath Records debut. Just lyrics and artwork. Usually when a band does this kind of thing – the most prevalent example I can think of when it comes to willfully withholding information is Black Cobra, but lots of acts do it – you’re not missing much. Recorded by their friend in a basement, blah blah, thanks to the bands we play with, blah blah. In the case of Phantom Glue’s Phantom Glue, however, the Boston, Massachusetts, outfit recorded with Converge’s Kurt Ballou at Godcity Recording Studio in Salem, had the record mastered by Nick Zampiello, and guitarist/vocalist Matt Oates handled the disturbing album art himself. One would think they’d want this information out there. Why attach names of the caliber of Ballou and Zampiello to a project and then not tell anyone about it?

Craziness!

The chief audio comparison point for Phantom Glue is going to be High on Fire all the way. Oates and bassist N. Wolf (who also contributes vocals) are rougher in their delivery than latter-day Matt Pike, and the music sometimes launches into Sunlight Studios-style death metal guitar theatrics (as on “Brainbow”) with Oates and fellow guitarist M. Gowell duking out harmonics in the grand Entombed tradition. They also mark Electric Wizard as a comparison point, I think for the slower moments on the record, like the first half of closer “Scabman,” the title track, or perhaps most appropriately, “Blacktar,” which is legitimately centered around a riff that’s pure stoner doom despite the bombastic chaos happening around it.

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