Brennen Westermeyer has a new album under his solo project banner Thorn on the way, Yawning Depths.

According to the press release: “Cavernous, brooding, and bleak, Thorn is a solo project of erstwhile Fluids vocalist Brennen Westermeyer. From the deserts of Phoenix, Thorn specializes in the foreboding and ominous. Weaving elements of death metal, doom, post, and grind, Thorn creates a soundscape for worshipping pagan gods and making offerings to entities unknown.”

I find the description to be quite accurate. Take a look at the cover image. That is what the music sounds like – being chewed, swallowed, and digested by a gap-mouth horror. In some ways, this album runs like a sequel to last year’s Crawling Worship. In my head, anyway.

There are eight tracks on the new album. I am going to go ahead and label this death metal music. There are other elements swimming in there, too – most notably a tasty doom sensibility that rears its handsome head occasionally. Still, death metal suits the set pretty well.

It is a brief affair but it has titanic moments. I was absolutely floored by “Noxious Existence,” and the sorrowful “Lapis Lazuli” took my breath away with its dark, mesmerizing beauty. The grinding crunch of doomy “Unknown Body of Light” burbles to the surface of my consciousness from time to time even now, and the closer, “Graven Moonglow,” is a show-stopper, and no mistake. I like the commitment in this music, the unswerving menace created in the compositions that is so well executed in the performance. Well done. Recommended.

Yawning Depths begins breaking hearts on Friday, February 4^th with the CD and digital, out through Chaos Records with the vinyl version to follow later in the year. Gurgling Gore has the cassette.

Links.

Bandcamp, https://thornx.bandcamp.com/

Chaos Records, https://www.chaos-records.com/