In recent years, the best metal has been that which ignores convention and walks freely across genre boundaries. Under the Everson Poe moniker, Mae Shults has exemplified this fact for over a decade, but they’ve truly outdone themself this year, releasing three albums (one post-punk, one metal, one electronic) with a fourth soon to follow.
Rituals may be the Everson Poe’s fourth album of 2020, but it is nonetheless an expansive, ambitious affair, full of both beauty and devastation. This much is proved by new single ‘Fallow/Hallowed’, a slow-burning doomy number inspired by a disdain for religious zealotry.
“Despite the original inspiration for the song being a scene from the cartoon show Gravity Falls (wherein Bill Cipher offers Gideon a handful of deer teeth), ‘Fallow / Hallowed’ is rooted in the same thematic world as the rest of the album: rituals and religion,” Shults tells us. “To that effect, it seemed fitting to utilise parts of Häxan [for the video], the semi-documentary about witchcraft through the ages.”
Astral Noize is thrilled to be bring you this enchanting, bleak track a month ahead of Rituals‘ release date. Check it out below then head to the Everson Poe Bandcamp to pre-order the full album.
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Rituals is out 13th November on Trepanation Records. Pre-order here.
Words: George Parr