Photo of Insect Ark live by Yani Beel

This year was another with prodigious amounts of outstanding music. Read on to learn about four gems that have been spinning on repeat in Drowning Sea God Records’ administrative quarters (in no particular order).

Insect Ark – Raw Blood Singing

Insect Ark’s fourth full-length came with renewal – a new drummer in Khanate’s Tim Wyskida, a new label, and most noticeably, band lead Dana Schechter adding her voice to the usual left-field instrumentation (bass, synth, lap steel guitar, drums).

The result is an album of gorgeous idiosyncrasy, somewhere on ‘the outer realms of avant-Metal, psych-Doom, and experimental Goth’, as the press release puts it.

Schechter’s vocals do a lot of the heavy lifting here – expressive, grown-up and unlike anybody else’s.

Wyskida, the other half of the duo, adds major songwriting contributions and a musical idiom entirely his own, staying miles away from cliché or contrivance and complementing the songs in unpredictable ways.

It would have been easy for the band to slide into smarmy trend-mag bait, but Insect Ark rarely lose their sense of song. Rounded out by a stereoscopic Colin Marston mix, ‘Raw Blood Singing’ is rare balm to the ears.

Dreamless Veil – Every Limb of the Flood

Side projects are a label’s PR dream, trading on fans’ familiarity with the main bands. But all too often, they fall flat of the heightened expectation, lacking the focus and dedication that makes the main outfits great. Dreamless Veil buck the norm and may even rival the day jobs.

Consisting of members of Artificial Brain (guitar, bass), Inter Arma (vocals) and Psycroptic (drums), the band sounds like an alien proponent of second-wave black metal, with punchy, hyper-technical drums, sophisticated riffing and cavernous vocals. That blend shouldn’t be a surprise if you consider the band members’ main trades, but there’s an incontrovertible sense of something new and brilliant at play here.

‘Every Limb of the Flood’ boasts a flair for dramatic tension that lasts from start to finish. Standout track ‘A Generation of Eyes’ easily takes the ‘riff of the year’ award from about halfway through the song, but it’s all amazing.

Full of Hell – Coagulated Bliss

It’s always with a lot of anticipation that I look forward to a new Full of Hell release proper, as much as I cherish the collaborative albums. The first full-length in their sole name since 2021’s ‘Garden of Burning Apparitions’, ‘Coagulated Bliss’ shows Full of Hell taking a significant turn with catchy riffs, a new producer and full technicolour artwork. All of those amount to what can only be described as a career-best album.

I’d written about Full of Hell’s impenetrability before, which was cause for fascination. On ‘Coagulated Bliss’, however, the chaos gives way to a clarity very much unlike the earlier output, both in songwriting and production. It’s still extreme and fascinating alright, but perhaps with several touches of Sonic Youth’s memorably louche riffing added to the band’s sound. And it’s a proper album, too, with expert sequencing of blasts and breathers.

Full of Hell’s thirst for innovation in all aspects of a release is more evident than ever on this album. They’re one of the most exciting bands alive right now.

夢遊病者 (Sleepwalker) – Delirium Pathomutageno Adductum

A late addition to my virtual turntable, Sleepwalker’s ‘Delirium Pathomutageno Adductum’ was an instant head-scratcher. ‘What on earth is this?’, I still hear myself ask. The only recognisable element comes from Øyvind Hægeland’s guest vocals (he of Spiral Architect), as they peer out of a fog of mid-paced ‘not quite’ black metal on album opener ‘Tongue Arc Orion’. If the Mars Volta played black metal, they’d maybe sound like Sleepwalker, but there’s so much more going on: choirs, French horn, guitar heroics, screams, murkiness, barely audible double kicks, masterful songwriting.

If the best music is the sort that makes you wrestle with words, Sleepwalker have left me linguistically exhausted, yet mentally exhilarated. It’s no accident that ‘Delirium Pathomutageno Adductum’ ended up taking the top spot in Stereogum’s end-of-year metal list. It might as well take mine.

Want more music? Check out our releases.

Get news about our releases in your inbox by signing up to our mailing list.