Though it spans much of the coast of western South America, Chile has the distinction of being the southernmost country in the world. If Sarah Palin were down there staring out at Drake Passage, she’d tell you she could see Antarctica. “And this is pertinent to what?” you’re rightly thinking. Our featured artist, BlackFlow, are a doom outfit from Chile, though they reside in the capital Santiago, which assuredly has no view of Antarctica, but a swell view of the Andes. I don’t know if it’s their southern hemisphere style or the significant distance between Santiago and where doom was born in Birmingham, England, but BlackFlow play doom with a confident melodicism. On new single, “Neo Middle Ages,” the music is saying “misery,” while the melodies offer something less so. It’s a cool juxtaposition and it serves the quintet—Víctor Prades (vocals), Miguel Canessa (drums), Frane Franulic (guitars), Víctor Silva (guitars), Felipe Vuletich (bass)—well on this rumbling loper.
“Neo Middle Ages” is the lead track from BlackFlow’s debut eight-song full-length, Seeds of Downfall, which was produced by BlackFlow with Seba Puente who also engineered, mixed and mastered the album at AudioCustom Estudio and Icono Estudio in Chile. It’s set for release on CD and digitally on December 15 via Personal Records.
BlackFlow have this to offer in regard to their new track:
“Many modern societies fall into the madness of thinking that burning everything indiscriminately achieves purification, much like in the Middle Ages when the witch was pointed at with a finger to be redeemed through fire. When it appears that knowledge leads us to increasingly higher levels of morality and intellectual sophistication, you discover that the profound human tendency is to revert to the primitive, to focus on one’s own self, and with violence, get rid of anything that seems like a threat.”