photos by Lenore Romas
As Philadelphia-based instrumental/progressive post-doom metal duo SARATTMA prepares to release their debut LP, Escape Velocity, through Nefarious Industries, The Obelisk is now hosting an exclusive premiere of its title track.
The follow-up to their 2017-released Inner Spaces EP, Escape Velocity sees SARATTMA delivering an entrancing, psychedelic, apocalyptic journey through extraterrestrial landscapes. Drummer Sara Neidorf (Mellowdeath, ex-Brian Jonestown Massacre, Aptera) and guitarist Matt Hollenberg (Cleric, John Frum, John Zorn) weave an intricate fusion of modern improv, punk, jazz, djent, avante-psych-rock, and prog, evoking Frank Zappa, John Zorn, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Dysrhythmia, Don Caballero, and Stinking Lizaveta. Their visually arousing music is a cinematic space punk anthem for those grimy enough to have survived the end of days.
Dedicated to Jill Neidorf (1957-2020), SARATTMA’s Escape Velocity was recorded in July 2019 at Black Spine Studios, mixed and engineered by Matt Hollenberg with additional mixing from Steve Roche, guitar re-amping engineered by Kevin Antreassian at Backroom Studios (The Dillinger Escape Plan) and mastered by Colin Marston at The Thousand Caves (Dysrhythmia, Gorguts). The striking cover artwork was created by Caroline Harrison and the layout handled by Erich Kriebel.
With the premiere of “Escape Velocity,” Neidorf reveals, “The title track of the album is meant to feel like a cross-species motherboard takeover, the terror of spotting an oasis only to realize it’s a wormhole, a crash-landing into an unknown ecosystem. The album’s overarching theme is the alien within the body, in the form of pain and illness. We know this at different intensities at different points in our own lives and in witnessing the experiences of loved ones. Though we can’t necessarily take the reins on this process, there’s some reprieve in depicting it.”
The Obelisk writes within their intense review accompanying the title track’s premiere, “It’s not every band that can pull the skronk out of extreme metal and use technical wizardry to turn it into something that speaks to an avant garde history of fuckery, but Escape Velocity trades between longer and shorter tracks across seven songs — starts longer, ends longest with the fifteen-minute finale ‘Twilight Realm Of Imaginary No’ — and offers the frenetic intensity of its opening title-track (premiering below) as an initial burst of intention, carrying djent riffing and Fredrik Thordendal-esque lead work to a place of atmospheric openness that clueing the listener on the quick that anything can and just might happen throughout the proceedings that follow, save perhaps for vocals, though who the hell knows where they’d go anyway..”
Listen to SARATTMA’s “Escape Velocity” through The Obelisk now at THIS LOCATION.
Escape Velocity will be released digitally and on LP in a run of 250 copies on Black vinyl on August 12th. Preorder/presave options are posted at the Nefarious Industries shop where “Sciatic Haze” and “Sublingual Excavation” are streaming HERE.
Watch for additional audio previews, videos, and more to be issued over the weeks ahead.
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