Batholith

CT’s cave-dwelling death duo BATHOLITH have released a video for their song “Familiar Paths to Obscure and Forlorn Peaks,” the lead single off their upcoming debut record Alpine Tomb.

“here it is baby aha lmao,” commented BIG SLIME GOATLORD via cut-up ransom note. BIG SLIME (BSG for short) provides the guttural vocals and grating guitar work for BATHOLITH, alongside drummer/synth master MERDA. “yeah u already know real deal dirty hardcore influenced death doom about mountains and dying shoutout all the hiking metal punks shoutout darkthrone shoutout new england”“Familiar Paths to Obscure and Forlorn Peaks” is an audial assault of doomy chugs and deathly drumbeats—the type of music a car compactor would make. Wails of feedback and spidery melodics punctuate a landscape of filthy distorted chords and plodding percussion. The vocals are a wretched roar, like someone filled their esophagus with ashes from a funeral pyre.

Directed by Brendan Baker, the video for “Familiar Paths…” features a ski-masked-up BIG SLIME GOATLORD, wielding a large knife as he stalks deep into snow-covered woods. The grainy, low-light aesthetic of the footage couples perfectly with the bloodbath riffs of the song, but the anxious energy is countered by the endemic, self-aware humor of BSG’s hard-style poses, knife-driven dance moves, and of course, the snowman decapitation.

The upcoming Alpine Tomb is the latest production by Bristol, CT’s GNTP Media. GNTP has become a bastion for many new heavy bands birthed during the Covid shutdown, providing the space, resources, and know-how for recording, live video performances, and band merchandise. Past releases include records from scvm, Exit Bag, Gas Station Dick Pill, and Taxidermy. GNTP also released the first BATHOLITH demo, Monolith of Unknown Origin, in September 2020.

Alpine Tomb will be released by Dismas Records; you can place a digital preorder via Bandcamp starting April 2nd. You can preorder BATHOLITH merch via Dismas Records website starting March 26th. - From Corners Unknown

A batholith is an igneous rock formation that extends deep into the earth, like Half Dome at Yosemite. Neat! What’s not neat is dying on a mountain. This is precisely the concept behind “Alpine Tomb” from Batholith, the Connecticut duo’s debut LP after last year’s EP. This 40-ish minute album describes the slow, harrowing process of experiencing hypothermia, starvation, high-altitude sickness, and psychological terror that would occur with having an immobilizing accident on an alpine peak. This is paired with dissolving death/doom with a hollow vocal aesthetic that might appeal to fans of Cianide’s “The Dying Truth” or Infester’s “To the Depths, in Degradation”. The album ends with appropriately mournful clean leads that demonstrate the ign(eous)ominious ending to the body being slowly encased in ice as the deep freeze sets in. Enjoy your summer! - Tape Wyrm