The human experience is a miserable one for so many people, and it’s about to get more difficult and blatantly unfair. In very few other times were people this beaten down by the power structure, some ignorantly so, and there is no one coming anytime soon to change that fate. A lot of times, it’s hell.

Which brings us to Hell the band, a one-man project helmed by M.S.W. that long has travelled through a world of existential suffering. “Submersus,” the project’s fifth full-length, and first in eight years, pours more of that into five tracks that batter with doom, sludge, and pain. There aren’t a ton of new twists and turns on this record, and there doesn’t need to be. M.S.W. has a way of churning you mind, heart, and body, helping you get a tiny glance at the emotions that went into making this music. It’s always destructively heavy, musically and lyrically, and the path you take will leave you battered and torn.  

“Hevy” opens in a hail of feedback before the tempo begins pummeling, M.S.W. wailing, “What have I become?” We head directly into grime and pain, drubbing as the screams fry, the playing shifting heavier into sludge, guitars building a swelling atmosphere. Gazey fire expands its grasp as the tempo blows open, spacious chaos spreading, guitars conjuring a fog that blankets everything. “Gravis” chugs, slowly bathing in the increasing pressure. Agonizing screams ripple down your spine as the playing is dragged through madness, the fuzz accumulating, drone thickening and blocking out all light. Wordless calls float as the electricity scorches, screams burn as cleaner notes rise, mournful melodies looping into a hopeless oblivion.

“Factum” has guitars quivering and a sunburnt feel wilting and bleaching color. A lonesome aura fills your chest as guitars cry out, slowly picking up the intensity before finally bowing to solitude. “Mortem” feels swampy and thick, shrieks maiming as sounds spread deeper into the darkness. Morbid leads moan as the battering delivers a calculated attack, leads suddenly glimmer, and we’re driving into fury as feedback drowns, and cold water freezes your flesh. Closer “Bog” emerges from the shadows, developing a cosmic bend, hellish screams choking you in the void, wrenching as the bruising continues. Sounds grow more immersive and fierce, the drone returns and buzzes, and dreams are warped, bleeding into a bizarre timeline in another dimension.

“Submersus” arrives at a unique, and miserable time in human existence, and anyone already struggling existentially likely isn’t doing much better these days. M.S.W. captures that suffering in these five songs that, yes, also attach nicely to his previous work where the search for some relief from excruciating personal efforts that often end up feeling feeble and pointless. This is music for searching within oneself for the remaining drops of strength we have when the outside world aims to drain it from our lifeless bodies.  

For more on the band, go here: https://loweryourhead.bandcamp.com/

To buy the album, go here: http://sentientruin.com/releases/hell-submersus

For more on the label, go here: http://sentientruin.com/