Buried- "The Only Promise" (Loaded Sound Records)

Today we're taking a trip through some territory that could be considered unsettling by many, with the debut release from Loaded Sound Records, Buried's horrifying black drone offering entitled "The Only Promise." This double-sided cassette features the same three songs on each side, each an untitled piece of that contribute's to the album's greater focus on the theme of imminent death and how each human being chooses how to deal or not deal with this unifying experience.

With knowledge of the album's theme in mind, it's hard not to notice how each sonic aspect of the album rotates back towards our dwindling time on this planet. The guitars stretch out in ever-expanding riffs that rumble onward while the first number of minutes of this album almost entirely lack percussion save for a single hi-hat strike that serves as the ticking of our collective clock. Vocals are sparse and hidden deep within the mix, but they're downright painful to hear and the lyrics are blunt and hopeless. Anything more flowery or complicated would dilute the intensity and simplicity of the message: everything you will ever do will eventually be rendered irrelevant, as we're all going to cease to be at some point in the relatively near future. The album itself even serves as both the fight against and the surrender to death, which I find is rather unique and makes this album just as much of a rite of passage as it is a meditation on this generally uncomfortable topic. While things speed up a bit at the end, it only feels like the last attempts to evade an already sealed fate. I can't say I feel any easier about my own demise after listening to this album, but I do feel that this album is a safe place to visit when I need to feel a connection to music that addresses such a concern. If you like your doom to be agonizingly slow and blackened to the point of absorbing all light, you need to give this tape a listen.

Copies are available from the band's merch store as well as the  Loaded Sound shop, where they've also got a sweet Buried shirt design, nifty cassette-worshiping beanies, and an even niftier Satan-worshiping tote bag. This may be the first Loaded Sound release, but I already know I can expect quality to come from this label in the future. Keep an eye on their website for more updates.