Portland doom outfit Usnea take a bleak look at the future on their latest record, Portals Into Futility. Combining their weighty brand of doom with sludge and death metal instrumentation plus varied vocal delivery and a general sense of dissonance, Portals was inspired by dystopian science fiction and the demoralizing state of world affairs.
Album opener “Eidolons and the Increate,” streaming below exclusively through Decibel, sets the tone of the record, miserable yet captivating as Usnea weave a variety of sounds across the twelve-minute song. “Eidolons and the Increate” comes with a music video that ranges from horror to dark psychedelia.
“‘Eidolons and the Increate’ ebbs from a murkiness in the future where humanity has fallen from a technological grace, the sun is dying and callous brutality is the way of the land,” Usnea tell Decibel. “Mirroring the dark psychedelia of its source of inspiration, Gene Wolfe’s Shadow of the Torturer, it is a meditation on the self-destructive conceits of humanity.”
Watch the video below, and head to Relapse Records for more information about the album before its September 8 release date.
