Ggu:ll Ferry Us Across Tides of Crushing Doom on "Voertuig der Verlorenen" (Music Video Premiere)
Okay, so first off, no, I don’t know how to pronounce this band’s name. Ggu:ll definitely isn’t the most out-there name I’ve seen, and I’m sure the band could tell me easily, but the short, puzzling nature of it lends the Dutch group an air of otherworldliness I enjoy–like it represents a concept not meant to be put into legible words. That’s not a bad starting point from which to examine their second-full length Ex Est, actually, which hits shelves next Friday. The album is a harrowing mass of atmospheric, blackened doom brimming with tension and a vessel for slowly-realized catharsis. The sentiment behind the music is what hits the hardest: whether the band’s twin guitar attack is pummeling away on evocative tremolo-picked chords or letting single chords ring out like forlorn bells, Ggu:ll maintains a masterful grip on listeners’ emotions.
Conceptually dealing with death and the search for meaning, Ex Est zooms far out on the human experience and renders it in crushing shades of doom and drone. It’s intensely personal, if you let yourself sink into the heart-rending gaps between riffs, but abstract in a way that urges one’s own interpretation. Without knowing the exact inspiration for a song (and without speaking Dutch, admittedly), the band’s cinematic mixture of sorrowful heaviness could represent almost any trial. Try it without that context first: watch the music video for “Voertuig der Verlorenen” below, and then read the band’s explanation of the song afterwards.
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The band explains “Voertuig der Verlorenen” below:
The title translates to ‘Vessel of the lost’. A vessel that endures the savage waves, high seas and soaring winds of a nightly gale and suddenly finds itself in the eye of the storm. Eerie and calm one licks their wounds and find a way back on course. Ruined sails are hoisted when the storm has been weathered. After a slow journey and when safe harbour has been reached, ale’s await the sailors’ tall stories of loss, defeat and survival..
‘Voertuig der Verlorenen’ is the first track we wrote for the new album. It’s a triptych composition with one part storm, one part drones and one part tribal doom.
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Ex Est releases October 21st via Consouling Sounds.
