UK blackened post-metal outfit Ba’al dropped their new EP »Soft Eyes«; out now via Ripcord Records!
Sheffield, UK based blackened post-metal outfit Ba’al is back with their new three-track EP, »Soft Eyes«, which was just released on May 3rd, 2024 via Ripcord Records.
Tracklist:
01. Ornamental Doll
02. Yearn To Burn Bright
03. Bamber Bridge
Courtesy of Imperative PR:
Back from the black once again, Sheffield’s Ba’al have returned with a new EP of overwhelming emotional power. Darker, more harrowing and yet ultimately more uplifting than anything the band have released before, »Soft Eyes« is comprised of a trilogy of vast tracks that will fall with you into the depths of despair, walk you through the cold fires of loss and pull you through the claustrophobic catacombs of grief, towards the first faint rays of hope. Raging and tumultuous, seething and insidious, scouring and cleansing – »Soft Eyes« will consume your senses and leave you spent.
Ba’al’s 2020 debut album, »Ellipsism« shocked the music press with its bleak intensity, leaving critics wondering what darkness could follow in its wake – and now »Soft Eyes« is here to finally provide the answers. Opening with the stunning, unfolding story of ‘Ornamental Doll’ the EP proceeds to unravel the listener, to dismantle them and lay bare their old scars and open wounds. Operating in the shadowed chasms that lie between the stark walls of genre, where monsters walk amongst the lost and unchained, »Soft Eyes« draws blood from doom, black, post and sludge metal, siphons off the essence of ambient and noise, reaches down into the emotive atmosphere of gothic mourning and sculpts the resulting clay into tortured graven images and monoliths of melancholy. The music moves from the cataclysmically heavy to the darkly brooding, shifts from deft, simmering rhythms to shattering explosions of thunder, slips quietly between hidden places and then roars into the light, tearing down defences in outpourings of agony and rage.
“I surrender control and let my grip relax, my focus drift…and the darkness that hangs behind you, that surrounds your haunted face like a fractured halo, swims forward in my awareness. I see the movement in the overlapping shadows, the devils of memory that dance about you and plague you with whispered cruelties and lullabies of doubt. I see the margin walkers that carry your burdens like pilgrims on dusty, night time roads. I see the outliers who guard your dreams in the frayed places on the very edge of remembrance. I see what has shaped you and broken you, what has painted you in the colours of old blood and pain, when I gaze upon you with softer eyes…”
»Soft Eyes« is a tome of stories, a path between shadows, the moment the sun slips below the horizon encapsulated in sound… it is the long awaited return of Ba’al. Nearly four years on from the release of their beautiful, gruelling debut album, »Ellipsism«, Sheffield’s darkest sons are ready to unveil their most powerful, emotive and inspiring work to date. Comprising of three gargantuan tracks that carry the listener through doors of perception, over seas of emotion to storm-ravaged, distant shores of revelation – »Soft Eyes« is an EP that can leave you changed by its visitation. The music exists in the twilight realms between definitions, where doom and sludge meet beneath the cold moon of ambient and noise, where gothic touches brush lightly against the skin of blackened post metal. Pulsing rhythms and fragile cascades of introspective melody collide with riffs like towering black stone monoliths and impassioned, agony-infused vocals howl like storms arising from the bleakest corners of the earth. All encompassing melancholy, scarring grief and a hollowing sense of loss swirl in a seemingly inescapable vortex of sound, yet, almost invisible, a pale grey light of hope flickers at the edge of the darkness… The breadth, depth and fierce intensity of Ba’al’s sound is breathtaking and »Soft Eyes« represents the perfect distillation of everything they have to offer. It is a sacrifice, an offering and between the raging walls of chaos, a silent assurance of understanding.
Recorded and mixed by Joe Clayton (Conjurer, Dawn Walker, Mountain Caller, Ithaca etc.) at No Studio in Manchester and mastered by the in demand Brad Boatright (Kylesa, Vastum, Obituary, Night Demon etc.) at Audiosiege, »Soft Eyes« sounds simply incredible; overwhelming, richly textured, crushingly heavy and wonderfully dynamic. The EP will hit the streets on May 3rd through Ba’al’s new label, Ripcord Records and the impact will be seismic. With »Soft Eyes« Ba’al have created a game changing record that will capture the hearts of all who wander into its dark embrace.
Order »Soft Eyes« here:
ripcordrecords.bandcamp.com/album/soft-eyes
For fans of: Conjurer | Oathbreaker | Inter Arma | The Ocean
Ba’al are:
Joe Stamps – Vocals
Richard Spencer – Bass
Nick Gosling – Guitar
Chris Mole – Guitar
Luke Rutter – Drums
Upcoming live dates:
May 25 Corporation, Sheffield, UK
May 30 The Star and Garter, Manchester, UK
Oct 18 The Black Heart, London, UK
Bojan Bidovc // music enthusiast, promoter, misanthrop and sometimes a journalist as well