Man, how the fuck do you even properly classify these guys? Thankfully, the gang at TLPB doesn’t really care about genre specificity, and only really use it as guide or suggestion, when it comes to identifying music. It’s meant to give you an idea of what you may be in for, regardless of how that experience actually treats you once you dive in.

Case in point – Nibiru. I’ve seen other sites out there refer to them as “Ritual Psychedelic Sludge” or “Blackened Sludge & Drone”, and perhaps most fittingly – “Experimental Psychedelic Ritual”. And you know what? They’re all correct, especially that last one. And one big thing they all have in common? This all recognize that this shit SLOW + NOISY. Yeah, this isn’t one for those who aren’t into the music taking its time, it’s one long 55 minute track, so you’re definitely gonna wanna strap in for this one, you’re gonna be here for a while, and this ride might get a little dark and disturbing. Yeah you guessed it. It’s time for the return of my favorite self-coined genre. This is some good-ol muhfuckin DEATH PSYCH. (Not to be confused with psychedelic death metal, DEATH PSYCH is a term I use to refer to psychedelic music that is as far removed as possible from the pretty flowers and hippie shit, and is instead full headlong into pushing sonic boundaries into redline territories, while still retaining deeply trippy properties – even if it may not be a good time. The sounds of a baaaaaad trip, man.)

So yeah, starting off fully honest here, I’m biased. I love these guys, and I was excited for this record. They’ve been releasing some heavy and trippy challenging music for quite some time, (I’ve been listening since 2014 I’d say), and every album they put out poses a new and interesting harrowing journey into some darkened corridors of the magikal subconscious that begs slow contemplative investigation. Though here, this is no peace.

You are welcomed to the album amidst the sounds of a spooky swirling psychedelic ritual around you. Noises and drones ebb and flow, strange tribal percussions rattle and clank in the darkness. Voices in tongues you cannot recognize chanting words that you could never imagine. In the distance, bells slowly ring. Solemn, funerary, threatening. From the outset, the album clearly begins with a strong and foreboding atmosphere that will simply refuse to let up as the piece progresses. It ebbs and flows as it goes, offering titanic cacophonies of chaos set against a slow uneasy calm that feels more like you’re hiding in the closet from the slasher and he’s searching the room looking for you. You can see him there, just through the slits in the door. He checks each and every possible place in the room, slowly narrowing things down the closet. You’re trapped, like a rat in a cage. There’s nothing to do but hold your breath and hope, but the truth is that death is coming soon, and these will probably be your last few moments, so might as well take them slowly.

So yeah, not the most pleasant of lower key vibes, but hey, what’d I say? Nibiru is death psych, and bad times are assured. These aspects really highlight for me the greatest strengths of this band. Which is to say, namely, the usage of expanded influences into traditional (and not so traditional) instruments and instrumentations, as well as a generous amount of droning keyboard, organ, and noise that all coalesce into a flawlessly grim and hypnotically foreboding time.

Speaking of that, what’s in the name? Nibiru. Wikipedia tells me that “The Nibiru cataclysm is a supposed disastrous encounter between Earth and a large planetary object that certain groups believed would take place in the early 21st century. Believers in this doomsday event usually refer to this object as Nibiru or Planet X.” Well ain’t that peachy? Galactic cataclysm on an apocalyptical level. That sounds like something worth having a grim ritual or two about. I think this aspect really also helps inform the presence of things that sound more cosmic on these records, in specific, the electronics department. I don’t feel that this section of the band is celebrated enough for both how lush and beautiful it is, while yet still melding perfectly in a way that’d do a disservice to the pieces entire without it.

Even though things come slowly in this record, these things still feel like they’re moving and going somewhere. We’re not just chasing our tails over and over here, these movements effortlessly breathe and grow and fill up mass amounts of sonic space in ways that will take you by surprise, yet feel so accurately psychedelic. There’s genuine consideration placed on the ritualistic psychedelic aspects of the sound here, since that is absolutely a large focus of what Nibiru is even doing in the first place. When the keys swell and overtake the sonic space around a building drum beat while a heavily distorted swiling cosmic guitar crashes in and around the space, it really just comes together in a delightful way. Some of it almost feels reminiscent of early Berlin School ala Klaus Schulze’s “Irrlicht”. Time being taken to weave elaborate sonic tapestries that are as beautiful as they are strange and dark. Unease abounds. Some parts feel like damaged lost cuts from Aphex Twin’s “Selected Ambient Works Vol. 2”, in this brief passing moments. Dark paranoid dirges that clank and rattle around in your brain as the synths ooze in and fill the dark corners with their burning vibrations.

Guitar wails over slow scorching crystaline drones beautiful shining away, as the screeching moans and motifs of the guitar fade into a deep delirious distance like a forgotten presence ghost outside your window. You swim in the sounds, yet you suffocate in the emptiness, as torture vocals weigh in on their suffering. Thankfully this torturousness is appropriate and visceral, and fits nicely. They arrive amidst the ritual we’ve found ourselves in, and come from a realm beyond our own, speaking words of doom and death upon the minds of those (un)fortunate enough to take witness. The intentional odd abuse of autotune is creative and fun, and works in their favor to add alien and otherworldly effects to the proceedings. Voice and keyboard harmonizing in a strange noise mix? Yes please. Stabbing beats to emphasize the way everything culminates and breaks down and transcends around you? Oh yeah, got that too. Industrial funtimes. Breathe in, breath out.

This one transcends its metal roots more than any others yet, I think. As a result, it can sometimes feel perhaps less “heavy” than a record like “Panspermia” or “Padmalotus”, but this is a different kind of heavy. A much more bleak, bizarre, edge of your nightmares heavy that eats away at your sanity because it’s never in full view, it always lurks just out of sight, at the edge, dwelling on the threshold, knowingly, enticingly. For its name holds naught but death.

Go ahead and take this dark and strange ride through cosmic rituals at the full album being streamed on YouTube below! As of this writing, it’s not up on their Bandcamp yet. Once it’s up, if it’s up, and IF I REMEMBER, (I listened and wrote this while stoned, shocker), I’ll go ahead and update this post accordingly. If not, well, yknow. Time makes fools of us all.

Go anamorphosize: