save the best for last. the fourth record i ordered at kozmik artifactz is such a rager. shroud eater's debut full length was a little surprise box to me. i read about the album on the vinyl diaries blog and just thought that the artwork was looking cool. when i saw the record at kozmik, i gave it a shot just to see if i might be interested. as soon as "iron mountain" was through, i knew i needed this piece. what a crushing behemoth of a doom metal song.
the band is a three-piece consisting of two girls on bass respectively on guitar and a guy on drums. all three are also performing vocals on the recording which adds a touch of more diversity. the rest is sludgy doom metal of the heavy kind. another band that came to my mind several times while listening to shroud eater was the mighty conan. the ultra low tuned string instruments are pounding out riffs of biblical proportions and the heavy drumming continuously reverberates amongst the madness.
check out this scorcher in its entirety here. what i have here is the 'not so standard' edition on cream, red and brown swirl. at the time it was the only available option at kozmik. by now they added some copies of the hand-numbered obi-strip edition. too bad for me because they look pretty good. anyway, this swirl edition looks sharp as well and i think the it's the nicest of the pressing. the gatefold is graced with disturbing yet beautiful artwork which is printed partly with an uv effect. great presentation all around. 250 copies made. stb records. 2017.
