Bleep

Khanate, the avant-doom supergroup of Stephen O’Malley (Sunn O))), KTL), James Plotkin (OLD, Scorn, Phantomsmasher), Alan Dubin (OLD, Gnaw) and Tim Wyskida (Blind Idiot God) burst onto the scene with their 2001 debut, a fearsome take on the slowest and lowest of all metal. Their 2003 followup Things Viral slowed processions down to a ploughing drone, and upped the sonic violence the four piece wrought. Imposing stomps, gongs, and impassioned shrieks stalk through the pacing strums of ‘Commuted’, leading towards guitars digging six feet “under an open field”, strums descending into low feedback oscillations, transformative glitches and sputtering noise. Alan Dubin’s vocals are particularly lucid yet laced with agitation; on ‘Dead’ they progress from whispered warnings to screamed soliloquies to stuttering echoes from the abyss.