Posts Tagged ‘Xasthur’

Watch: ‘Put You Out Of Your Misery’ by Xasthur

Posted: 7 July 2026 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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XASTHUR premiere the track ‘Put You Out of Your Misery’ as the first advance single taken from the forthcoming new album Open to Misinterpretation. This self-made recording of Dark American Folk is chalked up for release through Prophecy Productions on October 2, 2026.

Xasthur comment: “Wherever you go, there you are – and you have to live with yourself”, mastermind Scott Conner writes about ‘Put You Out of Your Misery’. “This song revolves around reaching that inner crossroads where something has to give, and you either confront the issues that make you miserable or you are allowing them to destroy you.”

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The eminent French philosopher and Literature Nobel Prize laureate Albert Camus posed and taught that the key in dealing with the absurdity of life and the universe is acceptance. Xasthur founder Scott Conner, an astute chronicler of the dark side of the American dream, has come to terms with that idea in his own way.

Conner has learned the hard way that his work can confuse people and be misread. He has come to accept that. This notion is clearly expressed in the title of his new work Open to Misinterpretation. This insight has also firmed his resolve to neither change his artistic direction nor to attempt making his music easier for people to access. Conner is just not interested in chasing what has worked for other people or fitting neatly into a genre.

This does not mean that Xasthur are standing still. Open to Misinterpretation represents a deeper and more developed version of what Conner already does. He keeps honing his expression and to find new sounds and moods for his ideas. As a result, his songwriting has become equally more detailed as well as harder to predict at the same time. The bass is used more prominently and also more technical on this album. A greater variety of guitar tunings opens up new possibilities, while the drum programming has become a serious part of how the songs are built.

The production has audibly been cleared up, even though Conner still aims for the recording process to feel live, organic, and real. Open to Misinterpretation probably feels more complete because these songs have already been performed live on stage due to Xasthur’s prior touring activities on both sides of the Atlantic. This means that the reactions of the audience have become a part of the tracks.

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Listen: ‘A Future to Fear II’ by Xasthur

Posted: 24 May 2023 in Recommended Streams and Videos
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XASTHUR unveil the next sinister single, ‘A Future to Fear II’, taken from the forthcoming double-album Inevitably Dark, which is set up for release on June 23, 2023.
The stylistically highly diverse American outfit instigated by multi-instrumentalist Scott Conner has created a kaleidoscopic double-album that is ranging from acid folk to black metal.

A visualizer of the eerie track ‘A Future to Fear II’ is available here:

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There is hardly a more fitting title for the new XASTHUR compositions than "Inevitably Dark". Darkness is the element that holds all the tracks together despite the fact that they are expressed in a multitude of genres, which even includes black metal. This time. Be warned: this album is neither meant as a return to black metal of mastermind Scott Conner, even though he does this time, nor a guarantee that it will happen again next time – although, he might. Maybe.

This monolith of musical darkness that is balefully towering in the shape of a monumental XASTHUR double album has been made from sonic granite. Like the intrusive igneous type of rock, it is coarse-grained, composed from different minerals that have formed from magma erupting to the surface from infernal depths, and has a high content of metal oxides that do not always show at a superficial glance.

Instead of quartz, alkali feldspar, and other types of rock, Conner has used black metal, dark ambient, acid folk, doomgrass, and other genres to express what he has seen and felt, as well as a way to find his own sound or style at a point in time – for example when he was without a steady home and often living in hotels or cars. His insights into the underbelly of the American dream are reflected in the lyrics of "Inevitably Dark", which are there even though there is no singing on the album. Conner is taking a look into the minds of the mentally ill. The puzzle of people that he encountered on the road and that might be homeless because they are ill, or whose minds shattered when they lost their homes.

Documenting what he has heard and seen, Conner recorded all the tracks of "Inevitably Dark" live and by himself, which might make it sound coarse to modern ears, but it is just the grit and stain of unfiltered reality. His way is the old hard way of a live sound and not the fake glitter of a perfectly polished product. XASTHUR are sounding exactly as the mastermind has envisioned his album to be: real.

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Xasthur by Lukasz Jaszak