Merchant to Begin Recording Beneath EP this Week
Melbourne post-sludge skinpeelers Merchant caught attention earlier this year with the cosmically-tinged debut album Suzerain (review here), which wound up seeing its US release on Snake Charmer Coalition. This week, the four-piece will enter the studio to begin tracking the follow-up to the full-length, which will be a new EP called Beneath, to be issued in the New Year via a yet-TBA label.
I don’t know much about the new material, in terms of how many tracks it will be — frankly it wouldn’t surprise me if it was a single, extended song — but it seems well worth it to me to look forward to finding out. If you’re in the habit of putting together lists of music to look forward to, say for posting annually sometime near the beginning of a given year, then Merchant would probably be a good name to include. They’ll be on mine, anyway.
They sent the following down the PR wire:
News in the land of Merchant
Australian sludge doom destroyers Merchant will be entering the studio this week with Mike Deslandes (High Tension, Coerce, YLVA) at the helm to record their sophomore release.
Following on from their debut release, Suzerain, the new EP is titled ‘Beneath’ and will be released in the early parts of 2017.
Suzerain was heralded as a churning slab of psychedelic sludge blended with kosmic doom. The success of Suzerain coupled with aggressive live rituals has seen the band share stages with Weedeater, Conan, Ufomammut, Monolord and Ithaqua throughout the last year.
Both a continuation and an evolution of what was created with Merchant’s debut, Beneath spans a near 30 minutes over 2 tracks and explores the depths of drone, passages of tangled despair and lightless introspection.
Beneath will be released both digitally and physically and the band are currently searching for a label to assist with the physical release.
https://www.facebook.com/DOOMMERCHANT/
http://doommerchant.bandcamp.com/album/suzerain-2
