The official music video for “The Vertical Labyrinth” from DARK SKY BURIAL, the new musical venture from NAPALM DEATH bassist Shane Embury, can be seen below. The song is taken from DARK SKY BURIAL‘s second album, “Quod Me Nutrit Me Destruit”, which came out on Friday, February 5.
“The new album title roughly translates into ‘what nourishes me will destroy me’,” Embury explains. “A year into this pandemic, I have channelled myself into making as much music as I can. A needed distraction but at the same time and now there’s lately an oppressive feeling that this pandemic may go on much longer than people envision. Within the hypnotic loops and fractured harmonies that reside on the new album especially with tracks like ‘The Vertical Labyrinth’.
“I am sensing salvation but it was always there with my family. To balance the light with the darkness is always the struggle but worth it.”
While it’s largely true that creativity is not a tap that can be turned on and off, some musicians simply can’t stop generating brilliant new ideas. Best known as a member of grindcore gods NAPALM DEATH, Embury has been one of the underground rock and metal scenes’ most prolific and inventive figures over the last 30-plus years, with countless intriguing (and generally deafening) bands and projects to his name. But a new decade brings a new perspective and a brand new musical venture that takes the revered noisemonger into uncharted territory.
DARK SKY BURIAL marks the moment in Embury‘s artistic life where all restrictions and boundaries are obliterated forever. It is described in a press release as “a vivid and immersive trek through dark ambient soundscapes, unsettling industrial noise textures and wild, disorientating electronics.”
“Even though my roots were rock and metal based, I’ve always consciously been on the lookout for new sounds and bands,” said Shane. “As a very young kid, I was obsessed with recording TV themes on my tape recorder, which always baffled my friends. Since the early ’90s, I’ve wanted to get into making loop-based stuff — soundtrack-inspired music, I guess.”
DARK SKY BURIAL‘s debut album, last year’s “De Omnibus Dubitandum Es”, was pieced together steadily over the last 20 years. It was described as “a deep, dark and diverse beast that flows beautifully from spine-tingling start to emotionally devastating finish, via some of the most curiously evocative sounds, noises and — perhaps most surprisingly — melodies that Shane has ever conjured.”
