(TheMadIsraeli wrote this feature about Connecticut-based Stone Healer.)
About a week ago I spent some time digging for older releases by bands people should know about. Stone Healer is such a band and seemed a good choice for this post-holiday feature.
Dave Kaminsky, the mastermind behind Stone Healer, is an interesting character in the super-underground black metal scene just because of his style and overall production aesthetic. We’re talking the real garage tier; you’d have to be looking in the right places to find his obscure projects.
I had stumbled upon his previous band Autolatry, a progressive black metal band that also incorporated elements of post-hardcore into their sound, resulting in music that was abrasive, caustic, yet forlorn and melancholy.
Stone Healer is in essence a more musically diverse continuation of Autolatry that is both heavier and more chaotic, yet more emotive and progressive. If I had to come up with an “easy” summary for the Stone Healer sound, it’s like the chaos, bitterness, and wall of noise of black metal, but coming from the perspectives of Gojira and post-hardcore legends Burst. It’s still as violent as most other black metal and it’s also exceptionally technical music, but I enjoy the earthen emotive and introspective vibe to the music as an interesting complement.
But honestly, I don’t think I can do the Stone Healer sound justice through additional words. It has to be heard, and I’m highly enjoying what I’m hearing.
I’ll link the Bandcamp below for the only release thus far, an EP entitled He Who Rides Immolated Horses (pretty fucking metal title btw) and I’m interested to see what comes next. If the band’s Facebook page is any indication, we’ll see a full-length in 2017.
https://stonehealer.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/stonehealermusic
4 Responses to “BANDS YOU SHOULD BE LISTENING TO: STONE HEALER”
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I really enjoy the creativity in the vocals and the rough edges in the production. I imagine this might be a hard sell for some people because it’s lacking polish and isn’t easy to categorize. I haven’t listened to this in a while, but I still get the vocal hook from the title track stuck in my head sometimes. Cool to see it posted here.
Thought Autolatry’s last full length was super. This one upped it in just about every way.
I hear that these were originally the last Autolatry songs and that Stone Healer is going to be a new direction going into the future. With work this solid I will be sure to be following closely no matter what Mr Kaminsky is doing next.
man the instruments here are incredible, just not a fan of the clean vocals at times.
I wondered what happened to Autolatry. I loved their music. Will definitely be following this project!