Hong Kong-based extreme atmospheric metallers Hyponic release their third album, Qián Xíngzhe, on Aug. 10 via Weird Truth Productions. Its title translating roughly to “The Former Monk,” it’s the first Hyponic record in 11 years and finds the long-running outfit pared down to just two members, guitarist/vocalist Wah and guitarist/vocalist/drummer Roy, but as one can hear in “Zhu Miè Líng Ba,” the time between outings hardly seems to have dulled the band’s drive toward deeply weighted doom, taking influence from death and black metal but crafting something spacious and consuming from it in an emotionally-charged ambient melancholy.

That’s about par for the course for Hyponic, whoever might be in the band. Their last record was 2005’s deathly The Noise of Time, and it followed a somewhat similar direction, but the time between seems to have led Hyponic toward an even more atmospheric focus, at least if “Zhu Miè Líng Ba” and the Qian Xingzhe title-track (which is also out on YouTube) are anything to go by. I haven’t heard the full album yet, so won’t comment on it as a whole, but 2016 marks their 20th year of existence — Roy is a founding member — they’ve toured mainland China and become known for the viciousness of their approach, so I’m not going to argue with what I’m hearing, particularly because it sounds like it’s about to eat me anyway.

Preorders are up now, so think of this as a teaser if you want, or at very least a heads up on Hyponic‘s wrenching bleakness in case you haven’t heard them before. Also, please note that the titles listed below are approximations. I was unable to get the original Chinese characters to show up in WordPress and even when translated, there were accent marks that weren’t going through. Refer to the preorder page to see it all as it’s meant to be, and please enjoy the track:

Hyponic (Hong Kong) – Qián xíngzhe (August 10th, 2016, Weird Truth Productions)

On their 20th anniversary, Hyponic from Hong Kong release their new album after a gap of over a decade. Titled ‘Qián xíngzhe’, the mysterious band venture into newer realms – exploring dark ambient sounds, atmospheric black metal bits and all out melancholy. The music here is like the darker form of Funeral Moth – the atmospheric bits sink deeper into the consciousness, causing an emotive purge of all the repressed negativities in life.

It’s a slow, ongoing process, like a soul-transferring ritual of sorts, taking place mentally using the medium of sound. Upon listening to the entire weird and unpredictable album, I can say with confidence that Hyponic are without parallels. It’s a unique expression in the genre of atmospheric/funeral/’extreme’ death/doom – if it can even be called any of that. Weird Truth Productions, the master in deciphering obscure doom, has unleashed another gem in the genre.

1. Qián xíngzhe
2. Zhu miè líng ba
3. Zuìhòu chénshu
4. Níng pi bù huí
5. Piaoliú
6. Intro

Hyponic on Thee Facebooks

Hyponic website

Hypnonic preorder at Weird Truth Productions

Weird Truth Productions on Thee Facebooks

Amorphous and transient doom experimentalists Queen Elephantine have never been an easy act to nail down, and even as the 26-minute two-track sample of their upcoming fourth album, Scarab, commences an extended, droning and patient build, I can tell immediately that’s still the case. Nonetheless, an uptake in production value over their 2011 third offering, Garland of Skulls (posted here), and the patience with which “Veil” unfolds speaks to some solidification and maturity in the band, ever-shifting their modus and their lineup. One more to look forward to, I guess.

Here’s the cover art, info, links and tracks, sent along the PR wire:

Announcing Queen Elephantine’s fourth album Scarab, to be released in April on CD by Heart & Crossbone Records (Israel) and LP by Cosmic Eye Records (Greece).

“Delirious and psychedelic threnodies, abysmal doom observances and mild invocations, offering deep, heavy sounds straight from the soul-realm woven through the geometries of the cosmos – A funerary procession danced by a mighty double-trio of two axes, two drumsets, and two insectoid drones…”
Longer description beneath links.

Preorder/Info:
LP/CD/Digital
http://queenelephantine.clfrecords.com/scarab.html

Heart & Crossbone Records description:

“Formed in Hong Kong in 2006 and relocated to the United States a few years later, Queen Elephantine has produced some of the finest doom albums and splits (with Sons of Otis, Elder, and Alunah) in recent years, driven by sheer originality and mystical force embodied in resplendent shrines of sound.

Mastered by the omnipotent Billy Anderson (Melvins, Neurosis, Sleep and so many more), Scarab is Queen Elephantine’s 4th album: A work of grandeur which finds the band digging even deeper into delirious and psychedelic threnodies, abysmal doom observances and mild invocations, offering deep, heavy sounds straight from the soul-realm woven through the geometries of the cosmos – A funerary procession danced by a mighty double-trio of two axes, two drumsets, and two insectoid drones.

Opening track “Veil” is the sound of a Mercurial navigator galloping through epochs, a coarse voyage through unspeakable ancient rites. “Crone” is up next, revealing a shadowy affinity between minimalistic tribal-doom and elusive math-psych. Third track “Snake” is an 11-minute squirm of primordial suspension and reproach with sonorous and radiant vocalizations, swallowed by the caliginous doom wreckage of “Clear Light of the Unborn” which takes this masterpiece to its end in a chariot of headless horses heaving a monolithic obsidian temple across the dense, lightless extremes of space.”

Queen Elephantine, “Veil” & “Crone”