Oakland-based harbingers LYCUS will unleash the ominous curse of their debut LP Tempest next week, set for release on July 9th via 20 Buck Spin.
With a honed, masterful approach to their songwriting and delivery, LYCUS seemingly adds new vitality to the funeral doom genre with Tempest, the album’s three expansive tracks consuming nearly forty-two minutes of your soul with each listen. Recorded and mixed at hometown Earhammer Studios with Greg Wilkinson (Brainoil, Pallbearer, Samothrace, High On Fire), the album is literally drowning in an ocean-sized pool of incredibly descriptive accolades from media outlets. While references to Mournful Congregation, Ahab, Thergothon, Noothgrush and My Dying Bride are inevitable, LYCUS deliver both caustic and clean riffs and interject multiple vocal styles and additional instrumentation which elevate the material on Tempest to their own place among the scene’s veterans and forerunners.
Let the surge of Tempest pull you to the depths via Cvlt Nation AT THIS LOCATION.
LYCUS is just days from announcing their upcoming U.S. Summer tour, and will traverse the continent to wash away the East Coast in the Autumn months. Stay tuned.
“Lycus see the hope in doom. The Oakland quartet’s debut, Tempest, comprises three dying-star anthems that billow from speakers like swarms of interstellar locusts. ‘Coma Burn’ opens the album with a symphony of cell-decaying hymns and chanted vocals that crumple under the gravity field of a vast, blackened, panicked interlude. 9/10” – Decibel
“It’s difficult to make a subgenre like funeral doom feel fresh and vital, but Lycus are trying their damnedest to do just that… with Tempest they’ve harnessed the elemental power of an oncoming storm.” – Pitchfork
“It’s that moment of cathartic victory right before everyone dies at the end of a Senecan tragedy – awful, but somehow satisfying. And Lycus achieves that here.” – Stereogum
“Tempest is a grand and stately work, and Lycus, despite being a very young band, have constructed a debut LP that’s rich and full of effortless wonder and the dignified restraint to be found on the record belies the band’s youth at every turn.” – Cvlt Nation
“This is one awfully, beautifully dark record. Wholly and unrelentingly painful, Lycus walk into grief with thick skin and mud-caked fists. Sit with the feeling, they’ll tell you. It’s the only way out.” – Heavy Planet
“…an album so full of loss, so full of depressive grief, that if you closed your eyes and stared into the darkness long enough you may lose yourself and never make it back…” – Metal Insider
“The balance between heaviness and melody is pitch-perfect throughout, moves seamlessly from one to the other and makes for a textured album… 10/10” – Destructive Music
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