Filth Is Eternal
Ghastly’s Trippy Death Metal Dives Deep Into Madness
Death metal and psychedelic rock may seem worlds apart, but the two are actually riding the same psychic wavelength more often than not. In fact, I’d argue death metal has carried the mantle for psych for well over three decades. Both push guitar music to induce cerebral intoxication and overdrive – aided by copious volume – which can seem suffocating and freeing all at once. Psych’s trippy visions of boundless cosmos elicit the same heady pleasure of death metal’s visual fortes: dripping, melted skin, godly beings crushed into dust, endless wars begetting endless wars. No band embodies this connection like Finland’s Ghastly, whose latest album Mercurial Passages, out on May 28th through 20 Buck Spin, is as mind-bending as it is brutal. The trio, comprised of chief instrumentalist Ian J. D...
