“…a satisfyingly miserable experience dominated by crushing low-end and venom-dripping vocals. There’s just not a lot of music out there as deliberately heavy as this, nor as single-minded in its purpose.” – Best Metal On Bandcamp; May 2018
Missouri-based doom trio FISTER will take on a short run of US live dates this week in support of their No Spirit Within full-length, recently released on Listenable Records. The journey begins June 13th in their home city of St. Louis and includes a performance at Stygian Rites Fest in Rapid City, South Dakota and Trve Brewing’s Sixth Anniversary Bacchanal in Denver, Colorado. See all confirmed dates below.
Hailed for its “slow, trudging-and-grudgingly evil riffs,” by Metal Injection, FISTER‘s No Spirit Within was recorded, mixed, and mastered by Gabe Usery at Encapsulated Studios in St. Louis. The record is out now on CD, LP, and cassette formats. For physical orders go to THIS LOCATION or HERE with additional merch available from the band HERE.
Manifesting a sound so poisonous, polluted, and nihilistic that “sludge,” “doom,” “funeral,” and “death” are the only words close to suitable in description, on No Spirit Within the Midwestern outfit are overpowering and relentless at a city-leveling volume like a Sisyphean artillery brigade cursed to push two hundred tons of speaker cabinets uphill forever.
FISTER:
6/13/2018 The Sinkhole – St. Louis, MO w/ Un, Badr Vogu
6/20/2018 Gabe’s – Iowa City, IA w/ Aseethe, Obsidian Sword
6/21/2018 The Cabooze – Minneapolis, MN w/ No Funeral, Boson
6/22/2018 Stygian Rites Fest – Rapid City, SD
6/23/2018 Trve Brewing’s Sixth Anniversary Bacchanal @ Hi-Dive – Denver, CO
6/24/2018 Triple Nickel Tavern – Colorado Springs, CO w/ Worry, Weaken, Blighter
Hailing from the confluence of infectious disease, arbitrary violence, and rivers of industrial filth that is St. Louis, Missouri, FISTER has been sublimating their brutally toxic environment into a deliberate and belligerent challenge to the eardrums since 2009. Comprised of bassist/vocalist Kenny Snarzyk, drummer Kirk Gatterer, and guitarist/vocalist Marcus Newstead, this trio converts an eclectic swarm of extreme metal influences into the sonic analogue of trench warfare, concussive, bloody, and exhausting. Honed to grisly sharpness through years of performance, they have shared stages with countless musicians, including supporting sludge icons Eyehategod and Crowbar and appearances at the SXSW, Psycho Las Vegas, and Roadburn festivals. Pairing their seismic live offerings with more than a dozen releases, they have literally poured their blood into the work along the way – for their 2012 EP Violence, the band members had blood drawn and mixed with the ink used to print the liner notes.
From the hazy bulldozer bongripping of debut LP Bronsonic to 2015’s impossibly dismal IV, a gruesome and lysergic forty-four-minute long single track that tests the limits of adjectives like heavy or bleak, their sound is continually (d)evolving. Consistently finding new ways to hit bottom in a sequence of splits with fellow underground juggernauts Dopethrone, Primitive Man, and Teeth among others, FISTER has emerged as one of the nastiest strains of doom metal, adept at fusing the narcotic tension of drowning in misery with the planet-splitting intensity of devout amplifier worship.
“The slow slaughter proves to be an ode to beating all that wallows with a battle axe.” — Invisible Oranges
“Its centerpiece is the twelve-minute title track, with Kenny Snarzyk’s pained vocals echoing like he’s crying out from a cave deep below the earth. In the song’s staggering second half, the fuzz thickens and Snarzyk’s bass takes over the melody so that Marcus Newstead’s guitar can morph into some kind of sonic flamethrower. They sound like they could go on like this forever, until, with one final roar, the song slips abruptly into silence.” — Pitchfork
“No Spirit Within opens up with two-minute intro ‘Frozen Scythe’ which carries the foreboding resonance of an Ennio Morricone score but when a stomach-churning growl signals the start of ‘Disgraced Possession’ it becomes all too apparent that FISTER‘s latest album is less A Fistful Of Dollars and more The Day After Tomorrow…” — Cvlt Nation
“…a harrowing and dark trip into the abyss and a subsequent call from the void– a terrifying track that should not be missed.” – Revolver on “I Am Kuru”
“…holy hell does it sound hateful.” — Metal Injection
“…their latest effort No Spirit Within keeps the fear flowing, sonic bombardment at it’s slowest, heaviest, and sometimes most extreme form.” — Dead Rhetoric
“…if you’ve got headphones nearby and want to give your brain a kick in the pants just to show it who’s boss, then yeah, have at it.” — The Obelisk
“It’s easy to get lost in the monolithic and borderline terrifying waltz of No Spirit Within… [FISTER] reflects a certain bleak potency that exists within all of us and routinely guide us into ever darker sound worlds… Backbreaking and face smashing, this is what sludge should be about.” — Two Guys Metal Reviews
“…one of the nastiest strains of doom metal coming out of the US in recent years.” — Metal Revolution
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