Premiere: Chasmal Mire
S/T Demo
3/12/21 | R.L.
Ironically, the most effective tactic a new black metal band can employ in the scene’s current incarnation is to refrain from promotion, ostentatious presentation and heraldry overall. As the underground continues to saturate with new artists and side-projects and labels and releases and logos, a bit of mystery is all one should really need to catch the attention of fresh eyes. Such is the case with Chasmal Mire. With scant social media presence and limited exposition regarding their provenance, this new act arrives fully formed and with a debut demo recording, out today on Expansion Abyss.
Eschewing the genre’s traditional themes of supernatural evil or global holocaust, the j-card for Chasmal Mire’s first foray into the world reveals the band’s inspiration to be the very real and hyper-specific horrors of the state of Florida. Based in Fort McCoy, a small and centrally oriented community roughly between Gainesville and Orlando, Chasmal Mire, in true black metal form, seek to appease their own chthonic muse. The band cites the combination of the swampland’s enigmatic environment as well as the region’s grim history with substance abuse and pollution as the darkness they ponder to channel into their work.
Chasmal Mire incorporates elements of punk and thick psychedelia into their sound, which may indicate the previous musical origins of these artists, but never do these outside influences overpower their marshy black metal. Rather it all culminates into a final product that is heightened by the risks taken as opposed to hampered by them. The lead track “Stagnant Waters of Life” captures this idea the best as it deftly alternates between punk and swamp-infected verses and chaotic blast beats and shredding tremolo.
Chasmal Mire’s demo was recorded in 2019, but is only now emerging from the boggy depths in its totality. When we will hear more from Chasmal Mire is anyone’s guess but until then this demo remains the audio equivalent of the murky swamps of Florida, where darkness abounds.
Chasmal Mire S/T Demo available on cassette and CD through Expansion Abyss.
European distro by Iron Bonehead Productions and Stoic Strength to follow.
