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Benthic Realm Premiere “Untethered” Video; Playing Maryland Doom Fest & New England Stoner and Doom Fest

BENTHIC REALM (Photo by Chuck Losey)

I know Benthic Realm have all that melody, and that’s super, don’t get me wrong. I’d even go as far as super-duper, okay? I won’t say a bad word about it, because there isn’t a bad word to say. But if you go ahead and plug your eyeballs into the video for “Untethered” below and watch bassist Maureen Murphy do that longer-chug-pause-shorter-chug thing while drummer Dan Blomquist is busy giving his double-kick the business, that’s death metal happening. In listening to the Krista Van Guilder-led Worcester, Massachusetts’ three-piece’s 2018 second EP, We Will Not Bow (review here), I’m not sure I got just how deep the metal ran in terms of what they were doing. Obviously, it’s metal, and with Van Guider‘s vocal proclamations and gruelingness of riff, it’s plenty doomed, but it never occurred to me really to think of it as death-doom, and with “Untethered” brought into focus apart from its companion tracks on the EP, I’m feeling a bit like I need to revise that position.

And if is death-doom, or maybe doom-death — or melodic doom-death, if one is feeling micro-specific — then fair enough for the dynamic at play between Van Guider, Murphy and Blomquist, as the stylistic breadth and consuming atmospheric darkness only suits them in the recording. It’s ultimately fitting that “Untethered” was captured at the Stoned to Death 3 fest in Brattleboro, Vermont — check out Turn it Up! and In the Moment Records if you’re in town — where they shared the stage with DesolateChained to the Bottom of the OceanConclave and others, since it would seem to be a natural setting, but it’s all the more fortunate that Benthic Realm have the clip to work from as it highlights the scope and nuance of their sound and might lead one to go so far as to revisit We Will Not Bow in its entirety. To that end, you’ll find the stream at the bottom of this post.

What’s the lesson? Well, I think mostly that the trio’s sound isn’t a settled issue. These are experienced players — Van Guilder was in Second GraveWarHorse, etc., while Blomquist currently splits his time in Conclave and Murphy has played in a variety of acts from Dimentianon to Negative Reaction to Second Grave, and so on — but there’s obviously a continuing element of exploration to what they’re doing, and it remains to be seen what they’ll find in the darkness of their own making. A debut full-length seems warranted as a means of fleshing out their sound, though maybe that’s just me hoping they get one out sooner rather than later.

“Untethered” was shot by Sonic Titan Studios. Please enjoy:

Benthic Realm, “Untethered” official video

Video footage c/o Sonic Titan Studios from Stoned To Death Fest-3 filmed inside The Stone Church in Brattleboro, VT.

Link to original video of full set: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3E2l5vbSkXg

Benthic Realm, We Will Not Bow (2018)

Benthic Realm on Thee Facebooks

Benthic Realm on Bandcamp

Benthic Realm website

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