Swedish conceptualist atmospheric doomers Cavern Deep push deeper with their third full-length, Part III – The Bodiless, out this week through Majestic Mountain Records and their own Bonebag Records. The plot thread is somewhat obscure, which will happen when you get into cave-goth ambience and start weaving storylines and themes across successive releases. To wit, 2023’s Part II – Breach (review here) took the listener to depths only hinted at by the band’s 2021 self-titled debut (review here), so of course they begin by soaring with “The Bodiless” to draw the audience into the procession of these six tracks of slow-churning, consuming, claustrophobic darkness.

Marty Harvey, drummer/vocalist of Northern Irish crushers Slomatics, cuts through the low tonality of Cavern Deep‘s slog to guest on lead voice early in “The Bodiless,” thereby introducing the central character of the album, who seems to undergo a sort of transformative obliteration that, well, sounds pretty lovely if fraught in the making. Monsters of Lovecraftian proportion and purpose are met and overcome — “Queen Womb,” “Putrid Sentry” — but rebirth means death first. Intended as the final installment of what at some point in the last four years became a trilogy, Part III – The Bodiless feels every bit like the culmination it’s supposed to be, while at the same time demonstrating just how much Cavern Deep have carved an identity for themselves in its 38-minute span, whether that’s guitarist Kenny-Oswald Duvfenberg and bassist Max Malmer (I think he’s a bass vocally as well) — I think maybe drummer Dennis Sjödin gets in on the action too — creating character and drama through the vocal arrangement of “Queen Womb,” or the solo topping the plodding culmination of the penultimate “Galaxies Collide.”

The keyboard of Johannes Behndig (Sarcophagus Now), who was a guest player on Part II and is now a member of the band, plays an accordingly larger role in setting the scope, as the backdrop for the Martin Ludl saxophone solo in “Mosktraumen” showcases, but if all the plunge and bleakness and slow-big-metal-gears-grinding of Part III – The Bodiless is leading to something — and, good news, it is — it’s to closer “Full Circle.” This not only represents the moment of rebirth for the record’s sans-body protagonist, but is a densely-weighted outbound march that underscores the grim psychedelic cast of Cavern Deep‘s brand of doom; ethereal like swirling smoke but poisonous to breathe. Granted they’ve been writing songs about monsters hiding in dark underground spaces for circa half a decade at this point, but Part III – The Bodiless does not overplay its hand in horror. It doesn’t need to.

Being able to tell a story in impressions is something else Cavern Deep have been working toward all along, but it’s been a strength from the first album on, and the then-trio-now-four-piece have always had a willful-seeming push toward individualism. They’re not just heavy, they’re their kind of heavy, and the difference is one of playing to genre or using elements thereof to shape something more your own. Cavern Deep continue to refine their songwriting processes in the latter methodology, and they’ve grown accordingly more spacious and broader in their reach for that. And no, I don’t just mean in terms of adding keys. The vocal arrangements are bolder and more confident here than they’ve ever been, and with two prior LP’s (plus other short releases, videos, etc.), Cavern Deep sound more sure of the plan they’re following than they ever have, and aspects of their sound that felt exploratory before feel internalized in this material. They’ve learned from what they’ve done up to now, in other words.

All of this ideal in terms of Cavern Deep realizing their project — the stated trilogy — even if it leaves one curious as to what whims they might follow next. Suitably enough, “Full Circle” ends the tale back where it started, with one archeologist and 49 miners headed below the surface to begin the whole cycle, as at the start of the self-titled. Literally and figuratively, Cavern Deep are a different band than they were when they made that first album, and if they are in fact leaving this storyline behind — plans can and do change — they do so with purpose and a sense of continued growth and artistic progression. This is why, whatever horrors might unfold from here, their trilogy as manifest is such a triumph.

Part III – The Bodiless streams in full below. Please enjoy:

Swedish doom/psych explorers Cavern Deep return with the final chapter of their epic concept album trilogy. Titled “Part III – The Bodiless”, the album is set for release on May 9, 2025 via Bonebag Records and Majestic Mountain Records, marking the conclusion of a story that has taken listeners on a dark and otherworldly journey since the band’s self-titled debut in 2021.

Formed in 2019 by members of Zonaria and Gudars Skymning, Cavern Deep has built a reputation for crafting captivating, atmospheric doom soundscapes, blending crushing heaviness with eerie psychedelia. Their debut album, released via Interstellar Smoke Records, introduced a unique storytelling approach that continued with “Part II – Breach”, a critically acclaimed release on their own Bonebag Records.

Now, with “Part III – The Bodiless”, Cavern Deep brings the saga to a dramatic and haunting close, pushing their sonic boundaries further into the abyss. The album is expected to deliver the band’s signature slow, hypnotic riffs and cavernous atmospheres, while weaving a final chapter that explores themes of transcendence, transformation, and the unknown. It features Marty Harvey from Slomatics as the vocalist of the title-track “The Bodiless”, and Martin Ludl on saxophone playing on the track “Moskstraumen.”

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The concept synopsis is as follows:

1. The Bodiless

The transformation is complete. It enters the ungodly realm through the pulse, now without physical form. A shimmering image of nerves, energy, and vibrant rage moves through starless space. The bodiless is greeted by the never-ending hordes of shapeless beings, awoken for the sole purpose of ending its journey. They will all perish.

2. Queen Womb

Traveling between nodes of passage, covering the vast distances of void, the queen rises. Its children disintegrated, now itself decaying. Facing the bodiless with the desperation of a grieving mother, it unleashes a spewing tidal wave of pure hatred. It is futile. The struggle is short. All that remains is an empty husk. A floating dead mass.

3. Putrid Sentry

Enter the looming watcher of the outer rims, the putrid one. Bestower of unfathomable grief. The commander of a million shapeless minions now gone. It spreads its dark, suffocating energy across the vastness, like a mighty bellow. It wants to consume all. The bodiless seeps into its veins like a lethal promise, soon rendering its deadly cloak pierced and useless, shattered throughout dead space.

4. Moskstraumen

The bodiless slowly drifts into the maw of the maelstrom. Almost depleted. Nearly spent. Soon its purpose is fulfilled. This is the cradle of prime evil. As the ancient swirling mass begins to gnaw away at every ethereal nerve ending of the bodiless, its final offering is released in its full glory: the last light. Burning. Consuming. The grip on the entire realm withers away as the great whirlpool bellows in dying agony.

5. Galaxies Collide

As oozing wounds of ungodly matter bleed out and fade, space itself starts to crumble. Violently colliding with itself, tearing rifts in the very fabric of existence. The bodiless is pulled towards the dead black center of it all. The eye of the storm. Drifting to sleep. In peace. Flickering like a dying lantern.

6. Full Circle

The fail-safe. The curse. The testament. The bodiless is sucked into the deep at the center of the chaotic collapsing reality surrounding it. It is trying to draw breath. It is becoming. Images are rushing back like an unstoppable flood. There is flesh… One archaeologist and 49 brave men stand at the gates, staring down into the bowels of the mountain. It is time to begin the descent.

Line-up:
Kenny-Oswald Duvfenberg – Guitars & Vocals
Max Malmer – Bass & Vocals
Dennis Sjödin – Drums & Backup Vocals
Johannes Behndig – Keys

Cavern Deep on Facebook

Cavern Deep on Instagram

Cavern Deep on Bandcamp

Cavern Deep website

Majestic Mountain Records store

Majestic Mountain Records on Instagram

Majestic Mountain Records on Facebook

Bonebag Records on Facebook

Bonebag Records on Instagram

Bonebag Records website

An exact date and the title remain elusive, but at some relevant point in the coming however long, Umeå, Sweden’s Skogskult will make their full-length debut through Bonebag Records. “Pakten,” as you can read under the video premiering below, is one of a trilogy of singles advancing the record, which was produced by Max Malmer, who also plays in narrative doomers Cavern Deep and runs the label. If you decide to take on the video, and I hope you do, you’ll find a first impression in spacious but raw tonality, Samuel Nordström’s standalone guitar echoing out with plenty of room for the bass to sneak in before the actual crash. They’re riffing soon enough, mid-paced, sludgy swing, Alexander Söderlund‘s drums ready when the breakout comes to Priest riffage and bassy chug from Albin Kroon.

The story grows more complex with the arrival of Simon Rosengrim‘s vocals. The standalone frontman has plenty of echo/reverb on his voice, but is nonetheless dry-throated in style, a singer pushing through above the tongue to get a kind of harsher, Lemmy-ish edge of roughness. It’s not quite a shout — he’s singing, but singing out. Backed with cleaner and at least in this case water-treated vocals by Kroon in the chorus, Rosengrim lends a punkish root to the biker chug of “Pakten” riff, hinting toward proto-metal, but residing in a niche that lets the band explore ideas around atmosphere and texture. The hook gives way to a solo, they bring it back around smoothly, and even as someone completely ignorant of the Swedish language (the title translates to ‘the pact’), the straightforward structure lands well.

Heads up on something cool that doesn’t sound like everybody else. Further heads up that this isn’t the first time Bonebag Records has me saying that. As the bands continue to progress and the label continues to develop on its own side, a reliable outlet is taking shape. That’s not a thing to ignore.

Enjoy the clip. PR wire info follows below. More on the record when I hear it.

Thanks:

Skogskult, “Pakten” video premiere

Taking cues from classic doom bands like Sleep, Acid King, and Electric Wizard, as well as contemporary acts like Monolord and Telekinetic Yeti, Bonebag Records is thrilled to announce the signing of rising stars Skogskult, and the release of their debut later this year.

Formed in 2022 in the city of Umeå and featuring members of underground bands Från Mars, Scitalis, and Never Recover, the Swedish doom quartet herald the release of their debut with new single ‘Pakten’, with the official video premiering now.

Produced by Cavern Deep and Bonebag Record’s own Max Malmer, ‘Pakten’ is the first of three singles that delves deep into Nordic mythology and arcane mystery. Skinwalkers, Norse burial rituals, mysterious gatherings, like so many great, occult-obsessed rock bands it offers a fuzz-filled glimpse of darker days to come for Sweden’s rising subterranean stoners.

“I had the fortune of catching one of their first shows and signed them on the spot,” explains Malmer. “It was so great to see that there were young, local musicians getting into the stoner doom genre. Since discovering them we’ve produced an entire album together. Hopefully this new single will give everyone a sense of what they’re all about.”

Skogskult:
Samuel Nordström – Guitar
Albin Kroon – Bass
Simon Rosengrim – Vocals
Alexander Söderlund – Drums

Skogskult on Instagram

Skogskult on Facebook

Skogskult on Bandcamp

Bonebag Records on Facebook

Bonebag Records on Instagram

Bonebag Records website

Destroy, Erase, Improve pretty much did what it set out to do. It took heavy metal, specifically the burly metallithrash that Umeå, Sweden’s Meshuggah offered on their first LP, Contradictions Collapse, broke it down, wiped it away, and made it better. The band’s second album, issued through Nuclear Blast in 1995 — a 30th anniversary that will almost certainly be celebrated in some way next year — is among the most landmark releases in metal, regardless of subgenre. Hell, it’s its own subgenre. They only called it “djent” because to say “that thing Meshuggah does where the time signatures bend reality” would both be too on the nose and take too long to say. Certainly it’s implied, and for good reason.

At 46 minutes, Destroy, Erase, Improve is shorter than a lot of what was happening at the time deep in the peak of the CD era, and that relative brevity continues to serve how intense it feels when it hits the ear. The band comprised of vocalist Jens Kidman, guitarists Fredrik Thordendal (lead, also synth) and Mårten Hagström (rhythm), bassist Peter Nordin and drummer Tomas Haake (also responsible for most of the lyrics) found a niche in an intricacy of rhythm and timing that simply hadn’t been done before in an aggressive-music context.

They didn’t invent playing in ‘odd’ time signatures by any means, but they did something genuinely new with it. That it would go on to basically be the cornerstone of a subgenre unto itself — I’d add 1998’s Chaosphere (discussed here) to that list, and some of the band’s later work — but as much as Neurosis‘ style became the basis for post-metal, Meshuggah informed metalcore in the aughts, as every breakdown was really just trying to be ‘the Meshuggah part’ and everyone knew it, and their influence still resonates in modern metal more broadly. Not only did they create their own style for others to emulate as invariably would happen, but they affected multiple microgenres under the ‘heavy music’ umbrella.

The album’s no secret, of course. It’s one of the most celebrated releases of its generation, and I seriously doubt that anything I say about it will either never have been said before or provide some new insight as to how Meshuggah took on the direction they did, but from where I sit, comfortably on the couch that used to belong to my wife’s grandmother, the heat on for a chilly November morning, in socks, the lesson of Destroy, Erase, Improve feels an awful lot like it’s teaching the value of finding your place.

In this case, it’s an angry place. Destroy, Erase, Improve is immediate in its violent intention — ‘destroy’ comes first — and “Future Breed Machine” readily displays the characteristic temporal twists that would come to define the band’s impact, along with a kind of jangly gallop that offsets those undulations. Like any decent literature, Destroy, Erase, Improve teaches you how to read it as it unfolds. I don’t necessarily mean that the average person hearing it is going to start counting measures. Maybe you latch onto those parts as a life raft amid the tumult surrounding of tones that would only grow more tectonic with passing years finding their preface in the mighty chug of “Soul Burn.” Or maybe you follow Kidman‘s vocals, or Haake‘s drums — the hi-hat or the snare can assist if you’re looking to nod, see “Beneath” or the penultimate highlight “Suffer in Truth”  — or maybe you just let go and it unfolds in a wash over you. Maybe that’s your zen. I’m jealous if so.

But whatever route they take to get there, Meshuggah‘s vision of progressivism — because that’s kind of what any search for sonic/stylistic individualism is going to lead to, isn’t it?; a chase toward an ideal centered around deeper consideration of one’s work? — remains singular in its impact. There’s very little in the world that sounds both as intelligent and devastating. Destroy, Erase, Improve is this at its rawest, and “Future Breed Machine,” “Inside What’s Within Behind,” “Suffer in Truth” and others here are heralds for the path the band were putting themselves on through the material. Even in the three-minute ambient interlude “Acrid Placidity” — prescient of some of what Thordendal would do in his solo work — the album never lets its audience get fully away from the sense of things being off-kilter, weird in untraceable ways, and undeniably distinctive.

That Meshuggah went on to become one of metal’s most singularly crushing bands — their latest album, Immutable, came out in 2022; they’ve slowed down a little and that’s just fine by me because I like slow heavy metal music thank you very much — is immaterial to Destroy, Erase, Improve in the face of the risk the band were taking at the time. And to be sure, it was a few years before what was being heard was processed into an influence and Meshuggah really got ‘their due’ — recall there was no mobile social media at the time; fandom didn’t happen instantaneously as it can now — but not only are these 10 songs executed with precision, they’re poised even as they hit their hardest or explore the far reaches of where metal had previously been.

Those reaches turned out to be the place for themselves that the band were finding. They’ve dwelled there since, to largely undeniable results — they have enough fans that individual records are debated, but speaking broadly there’s no getting past their impact — and continued to refine and reshape what they do while retaining the inhuman superposition Destroy, Erase, Improve lays out. I know this kind of thing isn’t what’s always covered around here, and I know not everybody gets into harder and more extreme sounds, but you should know that I’m not trying to gatekeep. If you’ve never heard this record at all, I’d say put it on just for the experience of being able to say you heard it. If you know it, it’s its own excuse. For me, it’s unto itself, which 29 years later still very much feels like what they were going for at the time.

As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.

—

6:49AM now. I woke up at 5:30 with the alarm. Actually, I woke up at 1, then at 3, then at 5:30 with the alarm. I guess. It was a stupid kind of sleep. I’d been setting the alarm for a luxurious 6:30AM, because since The Pecan is in school, I have more time during the day to write, but since the time change a couple weeks ago — the ‘fall back’ in the US’ ridiculous ‘spring ahead, fall back’ like we can’t just fucking leave it alone? really? — she’s been getting up at around 6:20 where that had been an hour later. The time differential wasn’t a ton, but 40 minutes to an hour of conscious, focused, low-distraction writing time isn’t nothing to me.

So the experiment this morning was to see what my effect on her waking up was. As I’m banging around half-conscious through my morning routine, making coffee and tea and taking the dog out, etc., if it’s 6:30, is she at a point close enough to awake anyway that I’m tipping her over? She’s always been up with daylight, which can be brutal. That she’s already slept until nearly seven, and that it’s nearly fully light out, tells me that maybe I am part of what’s been getting her up. It’s kind of academic, I guess, but I’m home a lot these days and I guess that’s where you end up.

If you clicked that Chaosphere link above and read any of that post, or maybe you remember which I’m willing to believe two people do one of whom is my wife, the US political situation is a factor in my choice this week. It was in 2020 as well. I’ve been thinking about some of the differences between now and then, and mostly it works out to it’s sadder this time. In 2016, it was easy to be angry. There were protests in the streets, a million women getting out in the cold to proclaim themselves against an acknowledged sex offender being made president. This time everything just feels numb.

The absurd cabinet picks, the impossible-to-ignore parade of hateful bullshit. Yeah, I get sad thinking people actually voted for this, because it’s not like nobody knew what was coming. The country has been through this before, and people collectively decided that yeah, we need more of that as a nation. I wasn’t a huge fan of Harris either, or Biden, or Obama once he started drone-bombing civilians in foreign lands, but at least they held the country together. And even if you’re for anarchy, for letting it all go off the rails running up Don Jr.’s nose, how on earth can this be the vision of anarchy that speaks to people?

So yeah, sad. People voting away the rights of others, environmental protections and functional institutions (no, I’m not talking about Congress, but the lower-level bureaucracies of American government function just fine and employ tens of thousands) just to be mean. That is fucking sad. I should be moving on from that, to righteous anger or whatever impotent-ass stage of grief is next, but no.

Needless to say, the news yesterday that The Onion bought InfoWars was a bright light in all that encompassing dark. It’s been a lot of weed and Zelda in my downtime. Escapism. Fine. Give me a few more weeks to get my feet back under me in this already-was-awful–and-is-about-to-get-worse reality. And if you voted Republican and your still reading this because it thinks it makes you civil or some self-affirming garbage, when they take away my daughter’s right to exist and persecute your LBGT friends, neighbors and family — because everyone’s got ’em — remember it was all worth it to own the libs like a spiteful 12-year-old shithead.

A little anger peeking through, maybe. See? It’s a process. But should you require any extra leftist tears to sate whatever self-indulgent nazi — vote for a fascist you’re a fascist; disagree and be wrong — dopamine chase you’re on, I’ve got plenty.

To the rest, a great and safe weekend. May your blinders hold up as it all continues to unravel, and may you get through the day without having to hang your head at the realization of the moment in history you occupy. Don’t forget to hydrate!

FRM.

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As they’ve now established their own label in Bonebag Records and overseen the release of last year’s sophomore LP, Part II – Breach (review here), as well as an outing from Troy the Band and one impending from Terra Black — the news of which I haven’t even had a second to post here yet — it likely won’t be super-duper long before Swedish conceptualist epic doomers Cavern Deep start the gears grinding to issue their next album. Since their 2021 self-titled debut (review here), they have shown a creative urgency well-suited to the increasingly DIY ethos with which they operate.

Nonetheless, whatever shape their next record takes — and the reason I’m even talking about such a thing is because they finished recording it a month ago — in continuing the creepy, dark and engrossing narrative, there’s a decent chance it could be out before the end of 2024. You wouldn’t hear me complain. Likely recorded during those same recent album-three sessions, “The Peeler” arrives as a standalone single with an accompanying stop-motion animated video by Bob in Dope — might be like a stoner-doom Flat Stanley, if you have any idea what that is? — and is duly unsettling in its vibe. Stately in the manner of traditional doom, Cavern Deep‘s sound resonates an exploratory feel all the more as the band introduces Johannes Behndig (Sarcophagus Now) as their now-full-time synthesist.

You can certainly hear Behndig adding to the drama as “The Peeler” culminates, finding new breadth in the grim surroundings of the atmosphere cast around it, pushing deeper into the subsurface-horror narrative that has threaded through Cavern Deep‘s work to-date (a couple of covers notwithstanding). Behndig played on Part II – Breach as well, but it seems reasonable to expect him to become more of a presence in the songs by virtue of, you know, he’s actually in the band now rather than doing a guest spot. Being in the room when the song is written makes a difference.

I wouldn’t call myself early on posting it by any stretch, but if you haven’t seen it out there yet on the big wide internet, enjoy the “The Peeler” clip below. PR wire info follows after:

Cavern Deep, “The Peeler” official video

Swedish Doomsters CAVERN DEEP Hunt Monsters on Gripping New Single ‘THE PEELER’

Hailing from Umeå in Northern Sweden, the trio have carved out a name for themselves in recent years with hulking doom that has got the underground listening… ‘The Peeler’, the brand-new single from Cavern Deep is out now via Bonebag Records

Founded in 2019 by Max Malmer and former members of Swedish death metallers, Zonaria, and retro rockers, Gudars Skymning; Sweden’s Cavern Deep has established itself as one of the Scandinavia’s finest new doom metal bands.

Having released their first album in 2021 on the Polish label Interstellar Smoke Records, the band has since formed and issued music under their own Bonebag Records imprint, most recently releasing their latest record, Part II – Breach, to critical acclaim across Europe.

Returning this month for a one-off release, new single ‘The Peeler’ was originally intended to be a bonus track on the band’s forthcoming album. But while all good things come to those who wait, some things are too awesome to not share immediately. For those impatient souls itching for new material from the Umeå trio, this sleeping giant of a track focuses its attention on a lost mythical monster who resides in the deep cavernous realms of a long-lost civilisation. A hideous beast that hypnotises and oozes slime from its jaws, peeling skin from its still-stirring victims, and feeding off them piece by piece.

Towering guitars and drums soundtrack the ensuing chaos and seek to capture the creature using stark riffs and crushing strokes of colossal doom metal. Coupled with fantastic stop motion footage – assembled, and animated by artist, “Bob” – for the single’s visualiser video, ‘The Peeler’ is out now via Bonebag Records – bonebagrecords.com

Cavern Deep is:
Kenny-Oswald Duvfenberg – Guitars and Vocals
Max Malmer – Bass and Vocals
Dennis Sjödin – Drums, Backup Vocals and Keys
Johannes Behndig – Synth

Cavern Deep, “The Peeler” (2024)

Cavern Deep, Part II – Breach (2023)

Cavern Deep on Facebook

Cavern Deep on Instagram

Cavern Deep on Bandcamp

Cavern Deep website

Bonebag Records on Facebook

Bonebag Records on Instagram

Bonebag Records website

And when I say hint above, they’re kind of smacking you in the face with it. Fair enough that the Swedish conceptual doom storytellers would bring a full-time keyboardist into their lineup. Atmosphere and mood-setting has been a big piece of what they’ve done across their two-thus-far long-players, 2023’s Part II – Breach (review here) and the prior 2021 self-titled debut (review here), and no doubt they’ll put those keys and expensive looking whatnots in the picture they posted to their socials to foreboding use on the upcoming collection, which will be out… well…

Pardon me if I don’t hazard a guess, but it was more than a year from me posting about the recording being done to the actual release date. A big difference between 2024 and 2021 in that regard is that now the band have their own label in the form of Bonebag Records — they released their own second record and just put out Troy the Band‘s Cataclysm (review here) like a week ago — and pandemic-era vinyl pressing times have returned to something approaching normalcy. So I’m not being coy. It might be six months, it might be tomorrow or the next Bandcamp Friday and it might be never. I’m just a caveman, as Phil Hartman occasionally said in the ’90s.

But progress is progress and I feel pretty safe trusting Cavern Deep‘s next full-length will continue their forward creative push and progression, and whenever it shows up is fine so long as it does.

A quick blurb from the social media:

Part III is done and recorded! It is the most ambitious album we’ve done so far.

We also might have a new member in the band. Any ideas about what instrument he might be playing?

https://www.instagram.com/caverndeep/
https://www.facebook.com/caverndeep
https://caverndeep.com/
https://caverndeep.bandcamp.com/

https://www.facebook.com/bonebagrecords/
https://www.instagram.com/bonebagrecords/
https://bonebagrecords.com/

Cavern Deep, Part II – Breach (2023)

Swedish psych-leaning heavy grunge rockers I Am Low will release their fourth long-player, Úma, through Majestic Mountain Records on Sept. 29. Recorded in late 2022 and early 2023, it is the trio’s first album for the label, and it offers a look at the largely-ungoogleable outfit’s songwriting process in a mature but actively exploring state. I’ll say outright that Úma is my first experience with the band — guitarist/vocalist Kristoffer Norgren, bassist Anton Höög and drummer/backing vocalist Oskar Melander — and from the flowing chorus of opener “Gunman” onward, which is just the title repeated, they update ’90s grunge and alt rocks with heavy purpose and trippier flashes and entrancing repetition.

Above everything else — the guitar tone, the groove, the odd sample here and there, the focus on vocal melody that becomes such a defining feature — is songwriting. I Am Low aren’t shy about varying tempo, as one can hear in how the speedy “Ruins” careens after second cut “Dead Space” unveils the mellower side of the three-piece, but one way or the other, the structures beneath the Alice in Chains-esque bottom-of-mouth delivery from Norgren backed in harmony by Melander (unless that’s layering, which is always possible) are strong enough to convey a plan at work throughout the most languid of moments. For example, “Dead Space” is a slower, more open-feeling track than “Gunman” or “Ruins” or even side A’s “Wake,” which lets the bass be its anchor as it shows something of a more patient side in redirecting after the thrust of “Ruins.” But in the underlying structure it’s not so dissimilar from “Gunman” or the Helmet-y riffer “Pigs,” which follows the centerpiece title-track and is enough to make me believe that at one point or another, somebody in the band listened to or played a fair amount of noise rock.

Nonetheless, that influence is worked fluidly into the mix of grunge, heavy rock and lightly-added psych that’s no less at home igniting with the punkish basis of “Ruins” than the “Planet Caravan”-esque guitar meander and hand percussion of the penultimate “Void,” and I Am Low are consistent through these turns. In sound, in melody, in groove. Listening through from “Gunman” to “Release,” the prevailing impression from Úma is of the band sculpting the material in the studio, finding the place they wanted each song to occupy — positioning “Úma” in the middle speaks to this as well, but it’s more about what they’re actually doing in the songs — and letting it dwell there. “Gunman” works at the outset to start off with gentle taps on the ride cymbal, easing the listener into a build-up in progress. “Dead Space” seems to commune with “13 Angels”-C.O.C. similar to “Void”‘s Sabbathian basis, and the not-to-be-discounted momentum they subtly build through the “Tell me…” repetitions of the title-track, the way “Wake” highlights that bass as “Time” brings the guitar forward in a guitar solo seeming to communicate the drawl in the lyrics repeating the line “Time keeps on slipping.” I recall hearing something about that somewhere.

All of this rounds out to “Release” working back up the energy that “Void” traded out for trance — not complaining — holding its tension in the low end and loosing its forward build at about two minutes in before the solo marks the apex., as fitting and unpretentious a finish as I Am Low might conjure in light of Úma‘s abiding lack of fancy tricks in its component tracks. This isn’t effects-wash. It’s not improv jams. These songs are flowing, but grounded, conscious, and while it might be my first time hearing them, it’s very, very obviously not their first time honing a studio sound. They make resounding labelmates for the recently-reviewed Masheena in their ’90s elements (not so much the ’70s) and marked quality of craft, while remaining less outwardly pop-minded and moodier in tone, able to immerse their audience and create an atmosphere without losing their intended direction in the process. It should go without saying that this is mastery in action.

“Ruins” premieres below, followed by some comment from the band and more from the PR wire.

Please enjoy:

I Am Low, “Ruins” track premiere

I Am Low on “Ruins”:

“‘Ruins’ is the second single from our upcoming album, to be released on Majestic Mountain Records. Hard, fast and to the point (celebrating the fuck ups of the world) ‘Ruins’ is in quite bright contrast to some of the other tracks on the new album. However it still stays true to the sounds that formed this band, a healthy mix between grunge and stoner rock! Enjoy!”

Majestic Mountain Records is proud to [work with] Swedish, Umeå-based stoner rock trio I AM LOW for the release of the band’s fourth album “Úma”, due out on September 29th.

Ten years, three albums, two EPs and one line up change, Swedish stoner rock trio I AM LOW comprised of guitarist and vocalist Kristoffer Norgren, bassist Anton Höög and drummer and backing vocalist Oskar Melander are now ready to release their fourth, and hopefully their best and brightest album yet, perhaps heavier and slightly more psychedelic than before.

Tracklisting:
1. Gunman
2. Dead Space
3. Ruins
4. Wake
5. Úma
6. Pigs
7. Time
8. Void
9. Release

I AM LOW are:
Kristoffer Norgren: guitar/vocals
Anton Höög: bass
Oskar Melander: drums/backing vocals

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Swedish narrative doomers Cavern Deep — whose narrative, yes, is at least in part about a deep cavern — released their second full-length, Part II – Breach (review here) on July 14, and have accordingly been making their way through the album in a series of lyric videos. They did similar with their 2021 self-titled debut (review here), producing a series of lyric and live performance videos. Working under the banner of their own imprint, Bonebag Records, they can pretty much roll out whatever they want on their own schedule. So here we are.

“The Pulse” closes Part II – Breach, and brings the second guest vocal spot from Susie McMullan, best known for her work in Brume. She appears earlier on the album in “Primordial Basin” and her return for the closer gives a symmetry that corresponds to the fluidity of the storyline. It is a course of depressive, downer doom, an ending even if the story will go on. There’s an orb, flesh is obliterated, you know the deal. It doesn’t work out well. They call it their favorite track on the record, and while it would be exactly my kind of humor for a band to put out videos for every song on their album and call each one of them, individually, their favorite, I believe it about “The Pulse.” That atmosphere is so dense you feel like you can swim through it.

Even if this is the last track on the record, it’s probably not the last lyric video they’ll do, so keep an eye out. I’m not usually one for pushing such things, but subscribing on YouTube might be handy. They give kind of a vague summary of where the story is at by the time the album heads toward its ending, but if you want to dig further (pun not initially intended, but definitely left in on purpose), hit up the review linked in the first sentence of this post, which has the full album stream (also below if you’re feeling lazy) and all the track descriptions from the band. As much as you want to put in, effort-wise, Cavern Deep are ready to meet you on that level.

Here’s the clip. Bring your own oxygen:

Cavern Deep, “The Pulse” (feat. Susie McMullan) lyric video

Vinyl Pre-order:
https://bonebagrecords.com/products/cavern-deep-part-ii-breach-12-vinyl-pre-order
CD Digipack Pre-order:
https://bonebagrecords.com/products/cavern-deep-part-ii-breach-digipack-cd-pre-order

This is the last song on our latest record Part II – Breach, it is slow and features the haunting vocals of Susie McMullan of Brume. It might be the most odd track on the album, but it is our favourite.

The Synopsis is as follows:
This is it.
The release.
The soothing of the inner ache.
The organic matter is peeled off layer by layer as the being passes the rift.
The glowing orb withers away and sinks into the sea.
The pulsating passage lays bare.
It is liquid.
Lethal.
Bodiless.
It is ready.
They are doomed.

The concept album “Part II – Breach” is out now.

Cavern Deep is:
Kenny-Oswald Duvfenberg – Guitars and Vocals
Max Malmer – Bass and Vocals
Dennis Sjödin – Drums, Backup Vocals and Keys

Cavern Deep, Part II – Breach (2023)

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Cavern Deep website

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Bonebag Records website

This Friday, Swedish conceptualist doomers Cavern Deep will release their second full-length, Part II – Breach, through their own Bonebag Records imprint. Beginning with its title-track, the follow-up to the band’s 2021 Interstellar Smoke-released self-titled debut (review here) offers epic doom with Candlemassian fluidity and grace of riff and a marked attention to atmosphere that splays out across the 46 minutes of the album-proper, a total runtime that’s brought to 58:49 when the bonus track “The Attuning” (premiered here) is considered.

The Umeå-based DIY-recording three-piece of guitarist/vocalist Kenny-Oswald Duvfenberg, bassist/vocalist Max Malmer and drummer/keyboardist/backing vocalist Dennis Sjödin recorded Part II – Breach in 2021, reporting that it was finished even as they were still making videos for the debut. In addition to the multimedia presentation of that initial LP — two video series were made; one of the band performing the songs live and a set of lyric clips to focus on the narrative aspect of the work — Cavern Deep offered covers of Captain Beefheart and Frank Zappa (posted here) and Philip Glass (premiered here), and showed a readiness to reach beyond themselves and to build on what the first record established as their sound. They do exactly that, bolstered by guest appearances from Susie McMullan of San Francisco’s Brume, guitarist Johannes Behndig of Umeå prog instrumentalists Sarcophagus Now, and Monolord‘s Thomas V. Jäger on the aforementioned “The Attuning.”

A certain rough stateliness suits “Breach” and the album that follows it. The story — detailed by the band below — ends at the beginning with “The Attuning” bringing the character of ‘the archaeologist’ to an unceremonious conclusion before “Primordial Basin” picks up from the opener’s slowed-down-the-already-slow-nod ending and brings McMullan‘s contribution on vocals. Slow-rolling and churning, down, down, down goes “Primordial Basin” until it quiets for the verse, sparse noise from even deeper in the mix than the whole song seems to be around the two-minute mark. McMullan‘s echoing delivery, swaying and sad at first and growing more forceful as the song shifts back to its weightier riff and oozes through a midsection that’s a whole-album highlight. The burner of a guitar solo that leads into the duet crescendo returns after and Cavern Deep make their way through the feedback and into the ambient start of “A World Bereaved,” which feels even more lurching.

Multi-tracked vocals at the outset — I think it’s Duvfenberg and Malmer both in the initial verse, then the latter over the quieter stretch — are placed well after “Primordial Basin,” and “A World Bereaved” is even more patient in its unfurling. The full-volume lumber comes back as they move through the song’s middle, but their willingness to dwell in that minimal space for as long as they do underscores the growth they show in craft, even as they recorded concurrent to the first release. Suitably morose, “A World Bereaved” seems to collapse shortly before hitting six minutes into its total 8:42, with the guitar, bass and drums working into a dark-blue psychedelia, an organ solo presumably from Sjödin distinguishing the piece soon answered by howling guitar. There’s no comedown as they stop cold, but some residual feedback cuts off as the energy-kick chug of “Skeletal Wastes” starts, the silence there used to give it all the more of a bursting feel.

“Skeletal Wastes” is also the assumed start of the vinyl’s side B, and the faster tempo helps build momentum as the trio plunge deeper into the storyline. Behndig has his appearance in the song’s second half, playing an effects-laced lead over steady bass and drums that grow more insistent as keyboard is added and a rhythm that reminds of King Buffalo‘s “The Knocks” subtly enters beneath the swath of effects and/or synth floating around the ceiling of the mix. Some pointed thuds cap, as they will, and “Sea of Rust” indeed begins with wave samples ahead of jumping into its lead-topped intro, which returns to the classic doom feel of “Breach” itself. As with the opener, “Primordial Basin” and “A World Bereaved,” “Sea of Rust” has a break in its first half, but also as with the others, it is distinct sonically — that is, even when following a similar structure, Cavern Deep are mindful in shifting sounds — and it grows especially grim as it turns into its chanting-esque middle, the subsequent solo and key melody fading out long and churning, viscous, mournful.

That aura hopelessness mirrors where the story is at that point — a dead world — and sets up the resonant melody that tops the drawn-out doom of “The Pulse” as McMullan returns for a corresponding vocal spot on side B. It’s the shortest inclusion on Part II – Breach at 6:23, but feels like an arrival nonetheless, and while the lyrics aren’t necessarily narrating the action taking place in the material — that is, there’s no “the engineer goes here and does this or sees this dead thing”; the presentation is more obscure, impressionistic — the endpoint of the journey is enhanced by synth over a procession of sorrowful guitar, bass and drums, a definitely doomed but not entirely lightless void carried through the last March. Shades of later Type O Negative in the guitar tone give over to a sustained synth note that concludes. And “The Attuning” is pure slog, a riff righteously slow covered with a screaming solo setting the stage for Jäger‘s vocals later and bringing Part II – Breach down like the tape ran out just as they wrapped up, which for all I know is how it went.

After an ambitious first record, an ambitious second. Cavern Deep very obviously came out of Cavern Deep with a clear idea of what they thought worked and what they wanted to try to expand on, and Part II – Breach does that, while branching off in terms of narrative in such a way as to let it stand apart from its predecessor, so one doesn’t necessarily need to have heard the self-titled to understand where they’re coming from now. Or two years ago, anyway, since that’s when it was recorded. Foremost, Part II – Breach finds Cavern Deep digging — pun absolutely intended — further into their take, and emerging with an all-the-more individual sound for it. I don’t know where the story is headed from here, or if it’s done or what, but for the band itself, they still seem to be just getting started realizing their potential.

Part II – Breach streams in full, followed by a track-by-track explanation of where the songs bring the narrative. Note, these are not the lyrics, which you can find in the image above if you zoom in and squint hard.

Please enjoy:

Cavern Deep’s new record “Part II – Breach” is out July 14 on all platforms. CD and Vinyl are distributed by Bonebag Records.

Breach is Cavern Deep’s second album. It is, just as the first album a concept album which follows the story of the first.

The synopsis is as follows:

1. Breach
The archaeologist is no more. Engulfed.
As the ungodly withering sentinel feasts on his flesh and mind, something is opening.
Picked up by a violent current, the bare essence of the man is plunged through the strange spaces in between worlds.
It is reshaped. Traveling in its primal form with the monstrous being as a conduit. Its heart is blank. Mind is void.

2. Primordial Basin
She is watching patiently.
The engineer.
The last of its kind.
The theft of this essence from the otherworldy refuge was the final attempt.
Embedded in the being below her is the code.
Her design.
Her revenge.
Deep down in the basin, the putrid water stirs as the being breaks free from its membranous nursery.
The engineer watches in silent triumph from afar as the being destroys everything in its path in blind newborn rage.
Wading through the festering amniotic fluid it is pulled by an inner voice to the east.

3. A World Bereaved
No more memories of its earlier existence than glitching, flickering images.
Like waking up from distant clouded nightmares. Skin is thin, sore, still growing as it lumbers
through desolate landscapes. No signs of life to be seen. The ground is torn by sickly pulsating spirals,
shooting up in the thick clouds above. Passing former displays of architectural grandeur;
now caved in like hollow skulls. A sense of purpose is shaping inside as it finds its paths through the wasteland.

4. Skeletal Wastes
Before it, an ancient war ground.
It is vast and dreadful to behold. The last big battle of a dying civilization.
The last gasping breath.
The being makes its way through labyrinths of giant dead abominations and remnants of war machines
since long put to sleep. Picking up pace. Slowly burning from inside with an ever-growing sense of meaning.
It is the final solution. The retaliation of many. The faint glow in its veins extends to a cord.
The hovering placenta is feeding it in a steady rhythm, preparing the being for its passing.

5. Sea of Rust
The Sea. Dead.
Acidic.
This is ground zero.
It knows all.
It was here above the greatest of cities they broke through.
Drawn by the greed of kings and queens and their ever-growing thirst for the primal energy beyond their realm.
It was they who forced the few remaining to take refuge in a distant cold world, destined to wither away in
subterranean darkness. Everything is lost. Sunken. All but rust. The engineer gives up a sigh as she from afar
witnesses the being floating above the red watery mass towards the pulsating rift at the horizon.
It is starting to shed.

6. The Pulse
This is it.
The release.
The soothing of the inner ache.
The organic matter is peeled off layer by layer as the being passes the rift.
The glowing orb withers away and sinks into the sea.
The pulsating passage lays bare.
It is liquid.
Lethal.
Bodiless.
It is ready.
They are doomed.

7. The Attuning (bonus track)

At the end of his cavernous quest the archaeologist forfeit his life and slowly becomes one with the ungodly usurper.
His mind is suddenly touched from afar.
A distant wave snags him from the void currently closing around him, throwing the leftovers of his scattered essence into turmoil.
Into the stream.
Becoming something else.

Cavern Deep is:
Kenny-Oswald Duvfenberg – Guitars and Vocals
Max Malmer – Bass and Vocals
Dennis Sjödin – Drums, Backup Vocals and Keys

Cavern Deep on Facebook

Cavern Deep on Instagram

Cavern Deep on Bandcamp

Cavern Deep website

Bonebag Records on Facebook

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Bonebag Records website