The Los Angeles funeral sludge, post-doom, heavy-as-fuck band QAALM is a new project featuring members of Act of Defiance, Harassor, and Seven Sisters of Sleep. This video for “Existence Asunder” is a ten minute edit of the twenty minute song from their debut album, Resilience & Despair. The album is due out on March 2022, and this is the first taste of the record’s unique darkness and power. Give this truncated colossus a listen before the album is released on double vinyl from Hypaethral Records. CDs and cassettes will be handled by Trepanation Recordings.
The black and white videography chosen by director Vincente Cordero creates a somber mood where light is oppressive and shadows are a sanctuary. The song is a lurching mammoth of Neurosis proportions, with a scorched ambience of blackened doom. The heart of the song is a gloomy, ominous churn of distorted noise. But as the song unfolds there are brighter splashes of melody. Four minutes in, clean guitars create a new chapter where the lead guitars are unchained to soar from the tar pit. It’s an expressive and suspenseful track even at half the length that will appear on the crushing upcoming album. Having heard the album in its entirety: prepare to smash the pre-order button for this record. Very few debut records have this clearness of vision and a sound this thick and relentless.
Press play and succumb to “Existence Asunder” below.