If it wasn't for former Cream contributor, current Alaskan journalist and longtime metal aficionado Matt Sullivan, I quite possibly never would have listened to metal outfits like Municipal Waste, Sunn O))), Mastodon or Amesoeurs. Of course, I don't particularly like any of the aforementioned bands (I could hang with Municipal Waste a little bit), but that has everything to do with my palate and nothing to do with their legitimacy as metal outfits.
Point is, Matt Sullivan hipped me to local doom band Loss a few months back, and now they appear to be making quite the splash among metalheads all across the continent. Despond, Loss' debut (via Canadian label Profound Lore), was featured in The AV Club's monthly "Loud" column, where writer Jason Heller said, "The music itself is slower and more sprawling than continental drift. And just as massive." And over at Stereogum, metal writer Brandon Stosuy picked Despond as one of the top 26 metal albums of 2011 so far for his "Haunting the Chapel" column. They made No. 20.
Generally speaking, I like metal for its adherence to certain conventions, for its volume and for its attitude. Personally speaking, I hate that it makes me feel like my dad: incapable of discerning one band from another and leaving me completely not "getting it." That said, "An Ill Body Seats My Sinking Sight" from Despond does feel "slower and more sprawling than continental drift," as The AV Club's Heller put it. Listen to it after the jump. It's brutal. (Metal dudes still say "brutal," right? Is that cool? Damn it. I feel like my dad again.)
