Coffinworm

Join us at @psychocalifornia 2015, tickets and line-up info available now via psychoca.com 

Now in it’s third year, Psycho California continues to worship riffs, rides and tides. Jumbling genres of doom, heavy psych, sludge, post rock, hardcore, experimental and black metal. Psycho encompasses 54 bands across two stages, live art collaborations, a van & moto show and a coastal breeze you can't find anywhere else in the world.

  When:  May 15,16 & 17

Gatefold vinyl. Shipping late October 2014. Only 500 copies total. Colored vinyl limited to 200 copies. ...

Thanks to everyone for your patience. We are extremely pleased to announce that the vinyl preorder for 'IV.I.VIII' is available now. 300 copies on black / 200 copies on opaque silver.

Since their debut When All Became None was released about four years ago critics have struggled to find a moniker that fits Coffinworm. Are they blackened crust? Doom punk? Blackened death? Blackened tilapia? After a while all of these phrases begin to sound a lot like the Applebee’s menu so we’ll settle with the trustworthy “excellent.”

Coffinworm’s second album IV.I.VIII was released earlier this year and Carl Byers dropped by the shredder’s studio to give us an overview of the riffs that shaped him. Byers has so much game that he actually switched to guitar after spending time behind the drum kit. Does that mean he can also appear in our, er, banger’s studio?

8/10 from Metal Hammer.

"…further away from human dimensions and towards something way more monstrous and otherworldly. Coffinworm no longer sound merely like pissed-off, heavily intoxicated puny humans in a sweat-stinking rehearsal room, but devastatingly possessed, in the midst of an astral journey to the black nebula. "

Nebulous update, but nonetheless some news:

Coffinworm has been terrorizing the world since the release of their debut demo, Greater Bringer of Night. From that point on the black/doom/sludge sickening horror that they unleashed continues to haunt us. Their excellent debut album, When All Becomes None, would certainly seal the deal, and their split with Fistula would only increase the anticipation for a follow-up album. So here it is, IV.I.VIII, making us all silently scream in awe with the brutality that the band has been able to reach. What is so remarkable about Coffinworm is their ease to bring together black metal and sludge. “Instant Death Syndrome” is the ultimate testament of the unique duality of the band. In one end you get the eerie black metal leads, accompanied by the fast drums, and alternatively on the other end you get the pure weight of doom/sludge at its very best. It is quite impressive to behold, to be fair. What is even more astonishing is how many different methods of sonic manifestation the band is able to take on. “Lust Vs Vengeance” brings out the heavier side of Coffinworm with the slow tempo overwhelming your very existence as the huge riffs slowly take over. However what lies within the core of Coffinworm is the urge to crush your soul with their slithering melodies. For instance, the appearance of the clean guitar leads does not act as a shelter from the ongoing storm but, rather, as a sinister force trying to struggle the life out of you. The input of Sanford Parker (of Minsk and Corrections House) is quite noticeable on the album with the producer/engineer managing to bring out the best sound to accommodate for both the weight and the ambiance of the band. And in terms of ambiance, the band can sometimes go even further. For instance, the minimalistic part, halfway through “Of Eating Disorders and Restraining Orders,” with the effects hovering all over the place, is creating a dystopian environment that just gives IV.I.VIII that extra push.  Still, Coffinwom is able to amaze you even further with their ability to take on multiple forms in different areas. For instance the powerful groove of “Black Tears” is instantaneously making you want to start destroying everything in your line of sight, while at the same time the band retains the same amount of darkness that they have had since their inception. And when you also experience how the deep growls and shrieking screams can co-exist in disharmony within the band’s music, you find yourself on the very edge of sanity. But in essence, all that this album needs in order to convince you of its greatness is a single listen of the closing track, “A Death Sentence Called Life.” The pure malevolence of this opus is beyond description. IV.I.VIII is an album that rips apart the skies and crushes the very earth. If you consider yourself an extreme metal fan then there is no excuse for not listening to this malicious masterpiece.

“If Heaven is merciful, it will someday efface from my consciousness, the sight that I saw and let me live my last years in peace. I cannot sleep at night now, and have to take opiates when it thunders.” – H.P. Lovecraft, The Lurking Fear

If you’re a real, tried-and-true human being…one with a legit sense of heart and feelings…the odds are most definitely stacked toward the possibility that you’ve somehow, at some time in your life, been subjected to some of the most relentlessly pummeling darkness a stint on this plane of existence has to offer. With all of the light our eyes can witness and embrace, there are just as many shadows to choke our day to a halt. When it comes to the more grotesque, dismal side of things, life is really good at dishing that stuff out in gloriously destructive helpings. There are tons of old sayings about taking the bad with the good that pretty much seem to be an attempt to gloss over just how immensely anguishing our reality can be. Loss is real. Heartbreak is real. Rejection is real. Degradation is real. Hatred is real. Death is real. The unending abyss of total, sanity-killing darkness is 100% real. The thing is, only those with genuine heart and feeling can truly attest to what it’s like to go through those things…unless, of course, the very journey through the nightmare is what so viciously dragged them under. What’s really quite refreshing, in a world so full of unbridled misery, is when that Cimmerian stranglehold is harnessed to create something that’s just as hellish yet cathartic…and disturbingly beautiful all the same.

The Circle City’s very own masters of misanthropy, Coffinworm, have always seemed to have their collective finger on the throbbing pulse of life’s penchant for punishment. The band has returned with IV.I.VIII, their second full-length offering through Profound Lore Records. This time around, the kind of sludgy, black blooded nightmare psychosis that ran rampant like a plague doctor’s worst nightmare on 2010’s When All Became None is masterfully multiplied with gloriously unholy results.