This is a band that is pretty small and I really wasn't able to find a lot of information on them yet, so I hope they manage to break into the scene more. I ended up giving Detest the Sun a try during a Bandcamp Friday. I liked the name, I liked the album art, and the track I decided to preview (Nocturnal Rites) had such a cool, otherwordly sound to it, that I decided why the hell not. I bought it for about $5 and honestly, I should have given them more because this album ended up joining my permanent rotation!
From what I was able to pick up from the Encyclopaedia Metallum, they're a band from Louisiana that formed back in 2023 making them incredibly new to the scene. I have only seen one photo of the band, which is just a grainy photo of them in corpse paint screaming. A classic kind of black metal shoot, we love to see it. According to No Clean Singing, too, the band only consists of one member named Howl who does everything from the recording to the mixing to the mastering of the record. That's an insane amount of talent for one person to make an album which, to my ears, sounds very clean and impressive. I will admit that I'm just an amateur when it comes to these things, but if it is enough to impress me, I sincerely doubt I'm the only one!
The band is currently published under Void Wanderer Productions, a Dutch label, which as best as I can tell tends to focus on non-NSBM black metal and doom metal, so I've been following them for a moment now to find more doom metal bands that catch my eye.
Admittedly, I did get a touch ahead of myself above because I do find the album kind of exciting to talk about. I only recently started to make the switch out of Spotify, so Bandcamp is one of two services I switched to in an effort to better support the artists I listen to day in and day out. What I find so wonderful about Bandcamp is how much easier it makes finding smaller artists like these. Before I was entirely dependant upon word of mouth, but this isn't an ad for Bandcamp, this is about Detest the Sun.
I'm a sucker for more melodic death metal. One of the first things I noticed about the album is not only does it have this beautiful kind of ambient sound at the start of some of these tracks, but the guitar is so gorgeous. I would love to pick Howl's brain to see how he came up with these riffs and chords for his songs. While he is a death metal artist, he does the same thing a lot of doom metal bands I like do where he creates this full, heavy sound with these large chords, but then strips it all back to allow some haunting single notes to carry through the track. Give that the album has a strong theme of isolation and lonliness, it really helps hammer that home. Beyond that, Howl has such nice vocals that really do scratch my brain just right
I would have to say if you're looking for a death metal experience that isn't too long that has some slamming chords, good growls, and a cool otherwordly kind of feel, please give Moonspells and Everlasting Sorrow a try. I think you will find the experience absolutey delicious.
Oh hell I have to pick just one? If I had to, I would say Last Snowfall. I like the way that As the Soul Breaks Apart begins with this haunting piano melody that reminds me a lot of Moonlight Sonata leads into this cold wind that breaks into a cool guitar. The slowed down drums kick in before everything is stripped back to just a muffled guitar plucking but two notes before it opens up and everything hits. Full chords, a second guitar, the bass, it just makes for a very cool experience! And that's before the vocals kick in and bright the experience even higher!
Plus I'm a sucker that loves winter and it really does make me feel like I'm standing out in a snow covered field in the middle of the forest watching snowflakes continue to fall. As I write this in September, I'm already eager for that experience.
I'm excited for this artist. If I had any critique, it would be that this is a pretty short album, I would love to see something more full length from this artist in the future. I wish Howl a very successful career and I hope that I see another album from him in the near future. There is so much promise in this little album and I hope to find many more like it!