AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: PERCIPIENT — “PORTALS”

(written by Islander)

Percipient is a doom/death metal band hailing from Denver, Colorado. They tell us: “Originally formed in 2020 under a different name, the band endured a series of lineup changes and a brief hiatus before re-emerging with a refined vision. In 2022, they adopted the name Percipient — a reflection of their paranormal lyrical themes and obscure, atmospheric sound.”

As they continued finding their way, and now with a solidified lineup, they also found their voice, or rather voices, because their music has evolved in ways that, while undeniably haunting, are haunting in different ways — as you’re about to find out for yourselves.

The results of Percipient‘s work are now encompassed by an album aptly named Apparitions, which will be released on April 25th. What we have for you today is the premiere of their lyric video for the song “Portals“.

But before we get to “Portals“, we want to show you and let you hear the lyric video for “Marionette,” which was the first single — a disorienting and deeply chilling one — that Percipient released from the album.

The song’s narrator, heard in a gritty, monstrous roar, describes being filled with and surrounded by a “quite uneasy” feeling, “always queasy,” due to a “controlling” and “foreboding” evil spirit that has made him into its marionette.

Immediately, the music itself creates those same feelings with strangely whining, wailing, and writhing notes, dissonant and scarred with abrasion. Even while the music is putting nerves on edge the rhythm section provides a lot of visceral punch, but maybe not enough for the narrator to find death and thus escape the fiendish strings that control him — or at least that’s the fear created by the increasingly dismal and haunted melodies which the guitars eerily layer in.

On the other hand, the music starts to fight, to feverishly jab and jolt, and the narrator’s voice rises in jagged, harrowing screams. The music’s supernatural eeriness doesn’t vanish even as this is happening; the lead guitar continues to shimmer and wail.

But then comes an even more ghostly instrumental interlude, maybe the protagonist’s pause for breath, until the fight resumes, albeit musically conjoined with those tonal sensations of queasiness and others that generate near-berserk tension and elevate to a fever pitch of madness.

Throughout this frightening tale the rhythm section continue creating nuance and punch, and the guitars continue providing contrasts and complements between roughness and spectral clarity.

And now we turn to the lyric video we’re premiering for “Portals“.

In this song the protagonist expresses both agony and despair over the loss of a loved one, but also the perception that he will reach that person again through a portal into realms of death — and he prays for his own demise to carry him through it, even with questions lingering about whether that will succeed.

The vocals are once again cavernous, gritty, and commanding, and once again they explode in strangled screams of wretchedness. Musically, the song is more in line than “Marionette” with the band’s depiction of their music as doom/death metal, and in particular to the variants of that genre rendered by bands like Officium Triste. It provides haunting emotional power, and proves to be spellbinding.

At the outset, something like the bowing of an acoustic bass slowly elaborates a deeply mournful melody (but with shrill and unsettling frenzies behind it). As the rhythm section begin their heavily stalking and stomping (but pulse-punching) march, the lead guitar becomes the presence of a lost spirit, wailing and yearning in the music’s stratosphere.

That lead-guitar performance is a striking and melodically rich presence from its first appearance to near the end — interrupted only by a brief, frightening interlude, and becoming even more tormented when the riffing and drumming itself grows more frenzied. All the melodic variations are striking and soulful as they channel misery, confusion, and an intense grasping for life.

The rhythm section could easily have been overwhelmed by the melodies, but they again provide noticeable nuance as well as crushing weight.

PERCIPIENT is:
James Cummings – Vocals
Rich Delk – Guitar/Leads
Aaron Martinez – Guitar
Creg Matthews – Bass
Ivan Alcala – Drums

Apparitions was produced, mixed, and mastered by Ivan Alcala at Cadaver Audio. It will be released on April 25th via Cadaver Audio Recordings, and will be available on limited edition white vinyl LP, CD Digipak, and all major worldwide streaming platforms.

PRE-ORDER:
https://percipient.bandcamp.com/album/apparitions-2

FOLLOW:
https://www.facebook.com/PercipientCO/
https://www.instagram.com/percipient_co/