When met with the sheer depth that the underground has to offer, it’s only fair that there would be plenty of acts that go under the radar for any number of reasons as there’s a lot of competition and a lot of efforts for us to constantly sift through. It can be quite the undertaking to find new talent that holds not just promise but actual talent that’s capitalized on. Every so often, though, one can push through in bombastic fashion to immediately leave quite an impression. Wharflurch has been doing so for the last seven years now, and if it wasn’t their first album in 2021 that caught your attention, then this new opus of psychedelic madness should be at the top of your to-do list.
I make no stranger of my adoration for all things in psychedelia, but it can be quite a tricky thing to not just find it in a sound such as death metal, but find it utilized in such a way that feels satisfying and engaging from top to bottom. Already, Wharflurch delivered on such a rarely seen concept with their last full-length, “Psychedelic Realms ov Hell”, yet it is with virtually everything delivered throughout the direct sequel, “Mycodeath and Rebirth in the Outer Clusters”, that we’re given an insanity-inducing display of power that bends the mind and warps reality into something indistinguishable from what we know in our meager plane of existence. Death-doom wrapped in madness that never stops confounding the psyche, it’s every shred of this creation that looks to isolate you from any notion of comprehensive sanity while it’s the overwhelming heaviness of everything that makes damn sure you aren’t just consumed by the raw power of Wharflurch but inexorably transfigured into something unrecognizable. Pile onto it all a story that is constantly pushing the record even into sublime depths driven by unnerving electronics, the whole of “Mycodeath and Rebirth in the Outer Clusters” is nothing if not a disorienting but nonetheless satisfying work of intelligently brutal psychedelia the likes of which we’re fortunate to get even once in a given year.
It would be a dramatic understatement to call this record a victory for Wharflurch. Everything about the record is nasty, transcendent, and downright captivating to the highest degree. It’s obvious throughout all eight of these tracks that Wharflurch is not an act that is to be taken lightly with the sheer existence of “Mycodeath and Rebirth in the Outer Clusters” all one should need to know that Wharflurch may very well be not the band many of us asked for, but the one we’ve been sorely needing.
“Mycodeath and Rebirth in the Outer Clusters” releases on September 25th via Dawnbreed Records, Personal Records, and Gurgling Gore!
LISTEN to an advanced track from “Mycodeath and Rebirth in the Outer Clusters” on Bandcamp here.
LIKE Wharflurch on Facebook here.
FOLLOW Wharflurch on Instagram here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZi_351jKMs&list=RDuZi_351jKMs&start_radio=1