It’s as weird feeling having grown up largely a pacifist who doesn’t want to see people suffer and having a lot of yourself changed by a particularly horrific decade. It’s a lot to make peace with, knowing some of the thoughts that go through your head, some of the events you think about that could make everyone a lot safer. It feels unnatural but justified.

Burial Clouds’ new record “Burn Holy” isn’t about that very thing, but a quote in their bio made me think of my own journey. The band says every track is a meditation on what it means to live with a gentle, livid heart in an inhuman age, and that really hit center point for me. The music reflects that, ground-shaking doom that dumps truckloads of ash but also atmospheric passages that bask in beauty, paying off the horror and the heartbreak, navigating violent waves that nearly shake us the death. The band—vocalist Marina Lavelle, guitarists Matt Mitchell and Bryce Ramsey, bassist Flynn Hargreaves, drummer Tim Iserman—devastates over eight tracks and 40 minutes that dig deep into your tissue and leave a proper bruising on your body and soul.

“Burning the Olive Tree” bathes in hazy riffs as screams buckle, burly fury laying waste, moody singing following up with another perspective. The pace fires up as guitars speed, the rhythm section bashes with fervor, and then things go quiet and dreamy before floating away into the fog. “Windflower” opens with Lavelle’s singing moving like a ghost, static sludge adding ugliness, twisting bodies as roars level, squeezing blood vessels. Pianos cool as the singing glides and wild screams pierce the serenity, mangling flesh as everything comes to a throttling end. “Ashen Altar” attacks, screams battering, the heat surging as everything comes unglued, utterly ravaging. Cavernous hell consumes, the band battling hard as shrieks return and wipe glass shards over skin. “Negations” is a spacey interlude, synth and strings enveloping, sounds vibrating and settling in space dust.

“Be Not Afraid” has singing glowing, howls following through dreary passages, the playing then combusting, taking things apart with its teeth. The tempo becomes slower and moodier, darkness blending as the screams strike, soot spread generously on faces. Dual vocals rupture as the chaos thaws, hushed singing mixing into shadowy corners.  “Screaming, Drowning Pacified” rips immediately, shrill screams chewing on wounds, the playing trudging and spattering as blood boils over. The tone is fury, a doomy sprawl thickening, the brutality flattening until a urgent, violent end. “Forget Me Not” is a total change of pace, Lavelle’s singing soothing, a gentler, quivering journey opening, more folkish strains lightly raining, guitars draining. Darkness basks as Lavelle self-harmonizes, emotional wounds displayed for all to see. Closer “Eyes Without Light” starts shivering as cold pianos drain and soft vocals tease before Lavelle’s shrieks tear off your eyelids. The pace electrifies as howls wrench into a storm, violent jerks whiplashing, gushing as Lavelle’s cries smear guts on pavement. A muscular terror bristles as keys numb, letting your breathing return to normal, static and echoes rattling peace.

“Burn Holy” is more a psychological experience than a collection of songs, and taking on Burial Clouds’ strength is something to behold. The first journey should be in isolation, with no distractions, so the terror and beauty can melt and drizzle like a mind-altering syrup. This album is a fuller experience for this band, one that transforms them as a lineup and a creative entity, a journey that should cement them as one of doom’s most fearless.

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

To buy the album, go here: https://burialclouds.bandcamp.com/album/burn-holy