My internet pen-pal Rennie Resmini from the band starkweather has a talent (born of a mind that functions as a vast musical encyclopedia) for hinting at the experience of a new release through references to other bands. In the case of Mithridatum‘s debut album Harrowing, he wrote: “If you said this was a collaboration between Zhrine, Ulcerate and Thantifaxath it would make sense.”

Willowtip Records, which will release the record next month, has provided a different kind of hint: “Through mercurial waves beneath the moon’s mournful glow, a trinity of incarnate beings that embody Mithridatum have conjured forth the entity known as Harrowing, an auditory pilgrimage traversing a gloomscape leaden with dissonance, despondency, isolation, entropy… into the abyss.”

You might also want to consider the origins of the band’s name. As the label, or perhaps the band, explain: “The name Mithridatum refers to the practice of achieving immunity against poisoning through self-administered, sub-lethal doses. The allegory is inescapable in its illustration of the unrelenting immiseration all incarnate beings must endure, willing or unwilling.”

Of course, I’ll add my own two cents about the impressions left by the music, which truly is startling, but as of today you have two tracks from which to form your own impressions. Continue reading »