AN NCS PREMIERE: DRAWN AND QUARTERED — “LORD OF TWO HORNS”

(written by Islander)

Approximately 31 years ago the Seattle band Plague Bearer changed their name to Drawn and Quartered, and they’ve been living up to it ever sense. Over the course of eight albums and numerous other releases they’ve still found ways of spreading lethal musical pestilence, but ruthless death metal disembowelment and dismemberment has been their main stock in trade. (They weren’t kidding when they titled their second album Extermination Revelry.)

And now the time has come for these hell-spawned destructors (they’re actually very nice people!) to discharge a ninth album, this one named Lord of Two Horns. With fiendish pleasure, we’re helping spread the word about it today through our premiere of the album’s ferocious title track.

Here’s how Drawn and Quartered introduce the song you’re about to hear:

“Lord of Two Horns” is one of the bloodiest slabs from the abattoir. Leads of howling fury, diseased miasmas and neck crushing breaks lurk amidst the ghastly evocations of arcane blood rites and maniacal blasting violence.

They’re not kidding about that either.

Quickly propelled by high-octane drum battering and organ-rupturing bass-undulations, the song launches with a dose of dense, swarming and wailing riffage that feels simultaneously diseased, viciously demented, and eerily spectral (like hell’s own warning siren going off).

Monstrously imperious gutturals well up from cavernous depths, and the riffing also writhes and squirms, creating that diseased sonic miasma of which the band spoke. A pair of guitar solos also elevate above the slaughter and the agony with serpentine and sinister elegance, shrill and exotic in a way that conjures visions of a snake charmer and his swaying cobra (very much in line with the slithering aspects of the riffage).

The vocals reach even more ghastly depths and heights, vomiting bile and rage, as the drums continue their maniacal munitions-grade outbursts and the bass furthers its demented subterranean contortions. There’s no relent in this song, no mercy, no chance to breathe deeply, but the band do give us one more of those fiendishly mesmeric solos at the very end.

DRAWN AND QUARTERED:
Kelly Shane Kuciemba – lead & rhythm guitars
Herb Burke – bass guitar & vocals
Simon Dorfman – drums & percussion
Brandon Corsair – guitar

The album will be released on June 27th by Nuclear Winter Records, on LP, CD, cassette tape, and digital formats. The label pitches it this way:

Lord of Two Horns delivers eight tracks and 34 minutes of unfiltered DRAWN AND QUARTERED carnage: a maelstrom of blast-driven violence, suffocating atmosphere, and riff work sharp enough to flay flesh from bone. While doom-laden passages and crypt-born melodies still lurk within the shadows, the prevailing force is one of unhinged ferocity – this is death metal crafted to maim, forged in fire and performed with malicious intent.

The album was recorded over various periods in 2023-2024 at Plague Pit by guitarist Kelly Shane Kuciemba (with drums recorded by Chris Mannino at Die Burning Studios), and it was mixed and mastered by Loïc Fontaine for Krucyator Productions. The horrifying cover art was created by Gabriel T. Byrne.

Find pre-orders and more info about the album via the links below, and also lend your bloody ears to the record’s first single and opening song “Black Castle Butcher“.

PRE-ORDER:
https://nuclearwinterrecords.com/shop/
https://nuclearwinterrecords.bandcamp.com/album/lord-of-two-horns

DRAWN AND QUARTERED:
https://hailinfernaldarkness.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/drawnandquartered
https://www.instagram.com/hailinfernaldarkness/