Description

KHOST - 'Many Things Afflict Us Few Things Console Us'

CSR313LP (20 September 2024)
Black LP
Barcode: 0641871746354

The 5th album from Birmingham-based industrial/doom metal band Khost sees the band forging new and at times nightmarish territories, alongside their signature walls of detuned guitar, corroded percussion and VHS atmospherics.

Inspiration for many of the tracks came from countless live shows and even soundcheck experiments in which extreme, harsh electronics evolved, as did punk/early industrial tempos, all of which were then fused into the DNA of "Many Things Afflict Us Few Things Console Us".

Khost remark: "We hoped that the experience would be something like venturing into an off-limits wing of some gallery after-hours, with each turn more disorientating than where you just were".

Collaborators include AXEBREAKER (aka Terence Hannum of Locrian), acclaimed cellist JO QUAIL, and Berlin-based sound designer MANUEL LIEBESKIND.

The LP edition features a different mix by Khost especially for vinyl.

Black heavyweight 180g vinyl in a reverseboard sleeve.

Track listing:

A1. Death Threat (3:48)
A2. The Fifth Book of Agrippa (6:35)
A3. Face (2:22)
A4. Overrun (1:41)
A5. Reading Between The Lines (5:22)
B1. Many Things Afflict Us Few Things Console Us (5:18)
B2. Hands In Broken Time (1:55)
B3. Incinerator (4:19)
B4. Apotropaic (5:16)
B5. Transfixed (3:06)
B6. L2L6 (0:51)

REVIEWS:

"Staggeringly powerful... Khost are British and to have them release a record of this quality and power is f*cking fantastic... There are also moments on this album that bring to mind the likes of Scorn, where soundscapes are created that have a different kind of power to the roaring of uncovered diesel engines and screaming crankshafts... a phenomenally misanthropic sound, a slow grind through landscapes with the bleached bones of humans crunching underfoot... Khost share the same Arctic coldness and sense of alienation and loneliness as Godflesh... If you enjoy music that sounds like the whirring and grinding of machinery on endless grey, pain-saturated vistas of unrelenting horror and misanthropia then you are going to "enjoy" Khost mightily... I will be playing this album to death" (666,666,666/10, Ever Metal)

"Disorientation and unease is at the heart of Many Things Afflict Us... Khost could easily have taken the easy option of settling for an album's worth of ear crushing industrial doom and metal. Instead in numerous nuanced interludes and departures into more subtle, abstract territories with spoken word based noir ambience, alongside their dense onslaughts of guitars, Khost remain resolutely unique and not limited in their expression of a hopeful yet unsettling defiance. Play it loud for the full effect" (Compulsion Online)

"Khost is a monumental force of aural destruction... describing the human condition through a prism of endless weightiness... hypnotic and discomforting soundscapes that expose and unnerve its listeners... If you are already familiar with Khost’s sonic patchwork, you’ll feel right at home (or deliciously uneasy), in the band’s trademark, often overwhelming, signature sounds: detuned guitars that could tip over the edge into chaotic collapse at any second, corrosive percussion that sounds like it was dug up from a post-apocalyptic cave, and VHS ‘throwback’ grime mixed with restless noise. All of this congeals into a heavy haze, rumbling under Khost’s sensory attacks. The abysmal bass, riffs and industrial buzz creates a very dirty experience—similar to the warehouse in which it may have been recorded. Layered on top of this, the vocals are stretched and contorted with a sound that goes beyond the range of recognition and reinforces Khost’s foundation" (Elevar Magazine).

"I appreciate the unique vernacular Khost has cultivated for each of their tracks... Right from the outset, they grip you by the throat with 'The Fifth Book of Agrippa', a beautifully brutal introduction to this album, accompanied by visceral strings and harmonious vocals - neither of which I expected to be hearing in an industrial metal album - it would be good as the theme song for a dystopian, wastelander movie). 'Define The Edge Of Someone' stood out to me for the slower, pulsing baseline, and demonstrates just how much range you can squeeze out of a guitar if you know how to wield one. And 'Death Threat', being the first track I listened to via the visualiser, is certainly my top pick of the album! A massive congrats to Khost for this exceptional album and for all the directions they took it without leaving a hair out of place! Bravo!" (10/10, Novocaine)

"Khost is not just another average metal band... Their mixture of doom metal and industrial has opened some tight doors already through which they could share the stage with bands like Godflesh, JK Flesh, Con-Dom, Anaal Nathrakh and others.... In almost 70 minutes, divided over 18 tracks, they show humanity how it’s done, and it sounds fantastic! Their music is [an] emulsion with so much quality... and if you don’t mind a slight heaviness in your guitar, Khost will just as well fit any musical taste ranging from industrial to noise to metal to..." (Vital Weekly).

"Khost continues to beat down the hearts and minds of those subjecting themselves to their grim electronics... Khost is still out to pummel their sound into your soul through your ears and leave you worn and smiling at the end... the main focus is doomy, thick industrial, and Khost keeps their finger on this pulse... the most interesting tracks on this release are those that seem to stretch Khost to their furthest... With plenty of heaviness to ruin your day, Khost's Many Things Afflict Us Few Things Console Us is a heaping slab of industrial goodness. Their doomy vision gets an interesting makeover here, but always with the intent to expand, rather than limit or replace. The extra tracks on the CD and digital versions pull back Khost's mask and open up more of their world and influences. Adding this different material strengthens by juxtaposition and shows the listener just how deep this band can delve" (4/5, Musique Machine)

"Finally there will be a new Khost album, and an album it is! The sound is largely what we know and love Khost for. Very slow and dark doom metal with deep grunting vocals... Some of the tracks do sound very industrial... Also among the extra tracks is one of the dark ambient tracks with film samples that the band makes more often and two remixes. I particularly like the slow, dark tracks" (4/5, Gangleri).

"Uncanny husks of long abandoned warehouses, factories repurposed as startup offices, replete with eerie vestiges of forgetting. Khost give unique expression to this wilderness of the real, the sparsity, inactivity, and stasis apparently a permanent feature of post-industrial England... ‘Many Things Afflict Us, Few Things Console Us’ breaks with this stasis, seeking to project the appearance of life and variety onto a physical world increasingly bereft of such things. The overall impression is closer to a nightmarish cousin of The Desert Sessions... seemingly ordered in such a sequence that guarantees the most violent contrasts possible... a discomforting experience" (Hate Meditations)

"Brutal und düster ... Wirklich nichts für schwache Nerven! Khost keine Lust hat, sich in alte Muster zu zwängen. Die Band aus Birmingham hat es geschafft, neue, teils albtraumhafte Territorien zu erkunden, ohne dabei ihren unverwechselbaren Sound zu verlieren. Stell dir Wände aus verzerrten Instrumenten, korrodierte Schlagzeugrhythmen und eine bedrückende Atmosphären vor. Es ist, als ob du durch eine verlassene, noch funktionierende Industrieanlage wanderst, in der jede Ecke eine neue musikalische Überraschung bereithält... Jeder Track nimmt dich mit auf eine Reise, die sowohl faszinierend als auch verstörend ist – genau das, was du von einem echten Industrial Metal-Album erwartest... Khost hat es geschafft, ihren Sound weiterzuentwickeln und gleichzeitig die Essenz zu bewahren, die sie bereits in der Vergangenheit so einzigartig machte. Die Songs sind nicht nur brutal und düster, sondern auch unglaublich fesselnd. Es ist, als würde man einen guten Horrorfilm hören... bin ich absolut begeistert von diesem Release" (4.5/5, Medienkonverter)

"KHOST dipinge un paesaggio sonoro in cui si mescolano disperazione, potenza e incubo, quasi fosse una sinfonia dell’apocalisse per un’umanità senza via di fuga... è un affresco oscuro, scavato nelle profondità della condizione umana, dove i muri di chitarra detuned e percussioni corrose si intrecciano con elettronica estrema, evocando un’architettura sonora che pulsa di angoscia e vertigine... È una musica che non si ascolta semplicemente: si vive, si subisce, come una tempesta che disorienta e lacera, con ogni traccia che ci trascina più a fondo in questo abisso sonoro... È un viaggio estenuante e catartico, ma per chi osa addentrarsi nei meandri della sua oscurità, KHOST offre una ricompensa unica: la rivelazione di un nuovo linguaggio musicale, brutale e magnifico, che esplora l’essenza più pura del doom metal industriale, spingendosi oltre i confini del genere stesso" (Ver Sacrum)

"Khost nos presenta en esta nueva obra musical una nueva evolución conceptual del estilo industrial doom que vienen definiendo artísticamente desde hace años, perfilando temas musicales de vanguardia cuya esencia sonora viene marcada por la innovación y el riesgo en la composición... A nivel visual, [la carátula del álbum] como imagen que refleje el estilo industrial doom de Khost resulta perfecta, proyectando esta ambientación de desolación donde lo humano es fugaz y en situación profundamente crítica en su crisis irreversible... “Many Things Afflict Us Few Things Console Us”, el espectacular quinto álbum de Khost nos vuelve a mostrar su especial talento artístico en la composición que está marcando la diferencia dentro de esta escena" (Lux Atenea)