Latest album Desolation available now
Hailing from Denver’s thriving doom-metal scene, Khemmis captivated fans with their latest album Desolation, which was released on June 22nd of this year via 20 Buck Spin and Nuclear Blast Entertainment. Combining traditional doom with Thin Lizzy-style hard rock, the band have honed their craft to blend both extreme and old-school influences more seamlessly than ever before. Ill-omened melodies alongside chugging, galloping riffs set the tone of the album and in a special trailer being unveiled today, duelling axemen Phil Pendergast and Ben Hutcherson play through new track, ‘Flesh To Nothing‘. Check it out
“With Desolation we wanted to make a record that celebrated our love of the metal that got us into heavy music in the first place while still adding our own spin on that sound,” explains Phil.
“For me, ‘Flesh to Nothing’ is the song that most explicitly captures that spirit. My vocals were very inspired by both Rob Halford and Nick Holmes here, and the riffing has a lot of heavy metal swagger, making it one of my favorite tracks to play. The vocal climax into the dueling guitar solos is one of my favorite moments on the new record.”
Ben adds:
“We chose ‘Flesh to Nothing’ for this guitar playthrough because it covers a lot of ground — a somber, downtempo chorus gives way to a galloping bridge early in the song, while the vocal interplay during the black metal pre-solo break alludes to the dueling guitar solos near the end. Oh, and let’s not forget all of the harmonized guitar lines — we channeled Iron Maiden quite a few times in this track! Over the years, lots of fans asked how we write and play these songs, so we felt that ‘Flesh’ would serve as an ideal introduction to playing our brand of doomed heavy metal.
We tune our Flying Vs to Drop D down two whole steps (low to high A# F A# D# G C) and we both use D’Addario EXL158 Light Baritone Strings (13-62). When you tune low and play hard, you’ve gotta beef up those strings!”
Desolation is available for order now
The bewitching cover artwork for the new album was created by Sam Turner (Black Breath, 3 Inches Of Blood, In The Company Of Serpents).
The Desolation track list reads as follows:
1. Bloodletting
2. Isolation
3. Flesh To Nothing
4. The Seer
5. Maw Of Time
6. From Ruin
Each Monday The Metal Report sends out a list of all stories, interviews, reviews and features we’ve posted for the previous week. You can sign up for it here.
