Acclaimed experimental industrial doom project HALLOWED BUTCHERY conspires with Aesthetic Death to release “Deathsongs From The Hymnal Of The Church Of The Final Pilgrimage”, the project’s sophomore album, on March 26th 2021.
“Deathsongs From The Hymnal Of The Church Of The Final Pilgrimage” is available for streaming in its entirety at Cvlt Nation. Listen to it HERE. The album floods your senses, ingests your mind and draws you deep into a terrifying sonic adventure which you cannot escape.
Maine, New England: beloved home of classic horror across the years, ranging from 19th century Lovecraft to contemporary Stephen King. But sometimes truth is stranger than any fiction, and music can be a more evocative conveyance than literature…so, here, after – quite literally – a decade in the wilderness, is the unexpected return of experimental solo Doom project HALLOWED BUTCHERY, bringing experiences with a genuine death cult to sonic life…
After creating, then scrapping, the entirety of his planned sophomore follow-up to 2010’s “Funeral Rites For The Living”, reclusive Ryan Scott Fairfield retreated entirely from music and into the rural backwoods. A chance encounter with founder and leader Jonathan Curless drew him into a brief period living with The Church Of The Final Pilgrimage in 2017. This small, obscure religious group live austere self-subsistent lives, devoid of modern amenities and committed to an ultimate reverence for death, which they believe is the one true and final reality, and something contemporary society fears to face or embrace.
Inspired by that experience, Fairfield set out to produce an album wholly devoted to the worship of death, drawing heavily on the teachings and texts of Curless, and the result is “Deathsongs From The Hymnal Of The Church Of The Final Pilgrimage”. As with his previous works, it is a challenging beast both to hear and define: the material is hard and unflinching, wrapped in a musical shroud that primarily weaves Industrial and Neo-Folk threads around a stately backbone of Funeral Doom, but is also shot through with more disparate strands. Picture something that seamlessly merges the likes of Mournful Congregation, Current 93 and Godflesh, and is seasoned with touches of Pink Floyd, Sol and Blóðtrú, but still maintains its own internal consistency and completeness.
It is no accident that “the second Hallowed Butchery album” has become something of a speculative legend within the underground music scene, inspiring approximately equal amounts of hope and resignation that it might ever appear. Well, that day has finally arrived with “Deathsongs From The Hymnal Of The Church Of The Final Pilgrimage”, and it fully justifies all of the anticipation that preceded it.
This pure and thrilling embrace of the poetry of death and finality, briefly available on limited self-released cassette, will now be released on CD through Aesthetic Death, including a faithful copy of its inspiration, “The Consecrated Tenets of The Church of the Final Pilgrimage” for wider – and thoroughly recommended – distribution.
Album tracklist:
01. Ever Gloom
02. The Altruist
03. Flesh Borer
04. Death to All
05. Internment
06. On the Altar
HALLOWED BUTCHERY
https://hallowedbutchery.com/