Friend of the blog Brad Schumacher is back with a new project and a new album. After three albums of noise and post-industrial as Night Grinder and numerous contributions to a variety of other projects (including The Man and the Scientist and Low Forest), he is now Bone Caster. Romance the Serpent comes out on May 15, accompanied by custom video game levels for Wizordum that align with the music. He’s hosting a play-through on the day of release at 6:00pm MST here.
The new album explores dungeon synth, much in the vein of his recent collaborative projects Journey to the Ruin of Xilmys by Dweller and Carapace by Keepers of Kozamir (both 2024), but that’s just the start. The primary instrument is synthesizer, but there is plenty of guitar riffing, drum machine, and fuzz bass. The production is detailed and enveloping, in which each song is a new level, leading the listener into new worlds of torments and treasures.
Opener “Bioluminescent Butterfly” suitably begins with inviting introductory music, but the path soon leads into darker hellscapes. “A Tremulous Draught” has some Night Grinder-style noise, and “Cognitive Drift” recalls the anguished throes of The Cure’s The Top (1984) or the spookier corners of Siouxsie & the Banshees. “The Warlock” starts with pastoral fingerpicked guitar from Jim Fitzpatrick (Cup Collector, Falsetto Boy), but then goes metal.
For most of the album, Brad’s vocals are heavily treated and transformed into a goblinesque growl, recalling Skinny Puppy. Near the end, in “Tower to the Moon” and “Smoke and Mud”, the vocals start to clear (and Josh King (Low Forest, Joshua and the Ruins) joins the fray), as our troubled narrator reaches closer to relief and resolution. The closing “Epilogue: Moss-covered Stone” returns to the ethereal peace of the opening moments.
Romance the Serpent mystically invokes the feeling of playing D&D or an old fantasy RPG. It’s an intense ride. Take the journey yourself on May 15 at Bandcamp.
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