MINSK - Out of a Center Which is Neither Dead Nor Alive (2LP) on sale

MINSK - Out of a Center Which is Neither Dead Nor Alive (2LP)
Featuring Digital Download. Limited to 1000 pressing only. Gatefold sleeve. Drawing its nominal inspiration from a remote Belarussian city nestled deep amidst the in-betweens of the East and the West, a city that has been burned to the ground on several occasions only to be rebuilt like a Phoenix rising from its ashes, Minsk is a sort of dark cerebral experimentation...an emotive conceptualization that sears the visceral and hopes for something real...something between the conscious and the unconscious... a roller coaster of passion, noise, rhythm, and trance. Drawing its brand of eclecticism from a milieu of broadly spaced musical and conceptual influences, Minsk is a bodily experience that hints at a sort of mystical awareness and sophistication. The music is as organic as it is other-worldly, infusing the rhythms of the earth and the resonance of the human voice with the synthetic sounds of machines, amplifiers, and effects. Minsk combines a sonic onslaught of dirge-like walls of doom and metal with Hawkwind and Jethro Tull inspired 1970's psychedelic rock and tribal elements reminiscent of Dead Can Dance. The vocals range from soulful singing, to three and four part anthemic arrangements, to barbaric screams, and the result is a dynamic and emotional piece of sensory overload that has been compared to Neurosis, Mastodon, Cult of Luna, Entombed, and Acid Bath. The group formed in the summer of 2002, performing its first show in early 2003 and completing its demo CD, "Burning", in the fall of that year. Recording with producer Sanford Parker (Pelican, Unearthly Trance, Lair of the Minotaur, Venomous Concept) at Volume Studios has yielded both their AT A LOSS debut full length album and a new bass player in Parker himself, also noted for his play in the "megalithic doom outfit", Buried at Sea.