Hellish Form's Slow Motion Horror Holds "Shadows With Teeth" (Early Track Stream)
I think there’s a reason why some of the slowest doom metal out there tends to be the most emotional—there’s an upper bound on how much grief and pain you can fit into any given space of time. Slowing things down and letting sorrow fill the gaps between each note offers the most potential for making music really sad; the type of stuff made for listening to at 3 AM in the morning, lights off… well, not that I’ve ever done that, of course.
Hellish Form have observed this phenomenon and studied it well, making their upcoming sophomore album Remains a study in drawn-out misery: hopeless screams echo out between imposing and spaced-out pillars of rumbling amplification. By layering synth and guitar textures together, few notes are needed to fully saturate the listener in this ethereal void: every note triggers an agonizing heart-in-throat wait for a resolving chord to seal one’s fate. Step into the maw of the beast now with our premiere of the first track off the album, “Shadows With Teeth.”
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While the guitar tones here are especially despondent, there is a bit of lightness in the synthesizers that underlay them, creating a powerful superposition between those two states. As the song shifts into almost hopeful, more major tonalities towards the end, that dual-pronged approach almost makes the pit that forms in the stomach while listening to this even deeper.
Willow Ryan (guitars, synths, vocals/lyrics, programming) notes:
“Shadows With Teeth” is a horror story about trying to hide from trauma and the way that can splinter your identity. Yet it has a hopeful ending about embracing those fractured parts of yourself. This song might be the most balanced when it comes to the full album’s themes of light and darkness, so we’re excited for it to be the first peek at the record.
This is a special album for both of us. It covers new ground for us musically and feels like uncharted territory, but we couldn’t be happier with the results. We’re very excited to put it out into the world.
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Remains releases June 25, 2021 via Translation Loss Records.
