Khemmis

Sound DNA

• Metal
• Doom Metal

• heavy
• brooding
• occult

About

<b>The fifth album from Khemmis is both a statement of renewed intent and a ritual. “It’s a story about surrendering to madness.”</b> The fifth album from Khemmis is both a statement of renewed intent and a ritual meant to be performed by the listener. On the intent tip, the Denver doom squad—with half its members now as far-flung as North Carolina and Washington state—feel a renewed sense of purpose with recent addition Dave Small (bass) joining core members Phil Pendergast (guitar/vocals), Ben Hutcherson (guitar/vocals), and Zach Coleman (drums) in the studio for the first time. As for the ritual portion, <i>Khemmis</i> was thematically inspired by New Orleans R&B legend Dr. John’s 1968 debut, <i>Gris-Gris</i>. “It’s one of my favorite albums of all time, and the record is literally a voodoo ritual that is being enacted while you’re listening to it,” Pendergast tells Apple Music. “I can’t think of any other record that does that. Once I realized how our new songs were coming together, I felt drawn to do the same thing. So, our record is a ritual where you’re going along with a narrator for this ride that starts with the invocation of the ritual itself. It’s a story about surrendering to madness and the possession of creative potential. “There’s a lot of layers to this, and the whole album unfolds like a mirror,” he adds. “The midpoint where you flip the record is the mirror, and each of the songs going toward the midpoint has a corresponding song on the other side of the record.” Below, he details each track. <b>“Invocation of the Dreamer”</b> “This is probably one of my favorite songs we’ve ever written. I think it kind of covers new melodic ground for us as a band. We’re always going to be known as a melodic band, I think, first and foremost, with the dual-guitar harmonies and melodic vocals, but this song brings a couple of rhythmic nuances in that are new to us when Dave and Zach play off each other. It also has a darker melodic tonality than anything we’ve done before. We thought it was a great way to start the record, and it also serves as an invocation to the ritual that the album is accomplishing.” <b>“Corpsebloom Garden”</b> “This song has the first spirit that the narrator is transported to, and it’s a nature spirit. The nature spirit is observing this kingdom that’s being destroyed by man’s folly and infighting and desire to control nature, causing the death of this thing that is supporting life in that area and pissing it off so much that it annihilates everyone. I’ve never tried to write an environmentalist song before, but there’s a real irrationality to how we deal with nature these days, ignoring all the consequences of our actions.” <b>“Grief’s Reverie”</b> “In this song, he’s being transported into the body of this father, who’s riding to this sanitarium to try and save his daughter’s life. She’s fallen ill and she’s going to succumb to this sickness. To save her, he decides to surrender himself to this demon that is going to help his daughter but doesn’t realize that what that means is that he then has to die, leaving her alone in this haunted place that exerts complete control over her. He’s being entranced by the romanticism of this demonic character giving him what he desires, and the choruses in the song are from the perspective of this demonic figure. It doesn’t pan out well.” <b>“Beneath the Scythe”</b> “On this one, we’re transported into a small rural community that’s being terrorized by your classic slasher killer. One of the victims is sort of like the final girl, and the song is playing through what it actually means to be the person who survives something like this. What is the emotional and mental turmoil that results from it? This character develops dissociative identity disorder because of childhood trauma and invites these other personalities to help protect her. At the end of her life, she finds out that it means she’s been denied the chance to become whole. So, she’s trying to embrace her past trauma as a sort of reconciliation. This is the emotional centerpiece of the record, and its theme is displayed on the album cover.” <b>“Gilded Chambers”</b> “This song kicks off side two, and it’s a really fun one. It’s got a badass drum intro, which we’re suckers for, having grown up with songs like “Painkiller” and “Exciter” by Judas Priest. This song is the flipside of how we become enslaved to our memories and is tied to ‘Beneath the Scythe.’ But where that song is talking about dissociative identity disorder as a means to mask our pain, ‘Gilded Chambers’ is more about how addiction can mask our pain. It also takes from us these real moments that we get to live in our lives that are precious few. In this way, the song is like being bewitched by the high priestess of your drug of choice.” <b>“Tomb of Roses”</b> “This song is the flipside to ‘Grief’s Reverie,’ and it’s got the perspective of the daughter from that song in mind. She’s dealing with being under the control of this demonic figure and trying to find ways to experience beauty while being locked away in this chamber of total darkness. She becomes like a moonflower of sorts, phosphorescent in her own mind or at least in the space she’s in, which despite being dark has features she can distinguish. One of them is the door, which she’s terrified by because to open it means that this other figure that she’s residing with is coming into her space, but it also represents her door to freedom.” <b>“Carrion King”</b> This one is tied to ‘Corpsebloom Garden,’ and it’s about a mad king who’s dealing with the fallout of a war he started that has no purpose. What he’s decided to do out of his own cowardice is to save himself while his kingdom falls. He’s locked himself in this chamber underneath the throne room, despite calls from his friends and family and advisors to try and help with the situation. He becomes literally buried under the rubble of the civilization he’s responsible for and the dead bodies of the people he left behind. At the end of the song, we see the annihilation of all these projections of himself from the ritual.” <b>“Benediction Tones”</b> “This is the flipside for ‘Invocation.’ The way I’m constructing the ritual, it starts with an invocation calling something in and then a benediction, a message to leave people by. The benediction of this ritual sees the narrator reflecting on the experience that he’s had, seeing how men continue to destroy themselves through the pursuit of perfection. The motivation for enacting the ritual was to try and achieve the perfect song, but in the end, we come to the conclusion that that’s folly and the only way out is in complete acceptance of whatever shall be. Entranced by this music, he succumbs fully to madness and realizes that the only thing that’s real to him is a single breath. The exhalation of that breath becomes the aurora, the creative energies of the universe. And that’s the end of our story.”

via Apple Music

Tracklist