With each scuzzy opus pumped from the billows of their industrial warehouse headspace, the Fort Worth, TX-based duo Pinkish Black continue to erase the boundaries between the metal, post-punk, and doom traditions. Previous full-lengths on Handmade Birds and Century Media hit us with chunks of corroded synth dusted with fuzzed-out bass tones and moaned vocal missives — all of which congealed into discrete song structures bearing enough climaxes and interludes to continually keep us guessing. But above all, Pinkish Black deal in atmosphere. Horror score dread compounds over long swathes of mantra-like repetition, as new layers of texture creep into the corners of the mix. Multi-tasking synth/vocal warlock Daron Beck presides over the mire. He doles out his slow, stentorian proclamations like Julian Cope sitting in with classic-era Goblin. Drummer/synthesist Jon Teague settles into death march percussion patterns, blasting off into double-time tom runs when the moon is high and the moment is right.
For their forthcoming album Bottom of the Morning, due October 30, Pinkish Black make the move to the mighty Relapse Records. The album showcases the duo’s genre-colluding urges across seven combinatory compositions soaked with terror to full saturation. Check out “Everything Must Go,” premiering below, and sink your teeth into one such bleak morsel. Pinkish Black set us off into the wilderness without a headlamp. We stumble through thickets and trip over branches on the way to the clearing, following a voice we know we shouldn’t be following. We stop to catch our breath, but the boys don’t let us off so easy. The track’s B-section sparks off into manic hi-hat runs and whistled synth leads on the way to a bone-thick coda, and we know we’re not gonna make it out of here in one piece.
• Pinkish Black: https://pinkishblack.bandcamp.com
• Relapse Records: http://www.relapse.com