Taken from the album Die To This out Nov 27, 2026.
Having persisted on his solitary quest for more than a quarter century, leaving behind him dozens of demos, EPs, splits, and albums marking the tortured path of his life like so many breadcrumbs, Wrest once more plumbs the depths of his psyche to summon forth his seventh full-length album, Die To This. Few bands and artists rival the longevity and prolific output of LEVIATHAN. In the early 2000s, Wrest emerged with an unprecedented and prodigious flurry of 4-track demo recordings, a gaping wound sliced into the flesh of the world. Over time, he has shown greater restraint with his output as his composition has become more concentrated and complex, particularly his albums, the last of which, the brilliantly erratic Scar Sighted, came out more than a decade ago. Since then, Wrest has largely withdrawn, allowing only a trickle of new material in the form of a couple split releases and re-reissues. The unveiling of Die To This is, thus, a momentous event.
Wrest’s recordings have always felt deeply personal, a painstaking exploration of the hellish interior terrain of his soul mapped out through violent rituals of blood catharsis. This is particularly true of his flagship project Leviathan, as well as the profoundly bleak and uncategorizable material he released under the name Lurker of Chalice. His endless exploratory pursuit of new ideas has led him to gradually uncover novel dimensions of sound as he expands the scale and scope of his body of work.
Begun in 2019, Die To This is the most sonically unpredictable LVTHN album to date, displaying a sprawling panoply of disparate influences drawn together with vision and deliberation. The spinal column of his sound remains intact: Wrest’s relentless blast beats (drums being his first instrument) overlaid with dense layers of guitars, warped samples, and his characteristic manic howls. Yet, even the black metal elements on Die To This are unconstrained by convention, as Wrest resists slavish adherence to any particular style. Equally striking are the non-metal detours that permeate the album, which at times echo the experimental, cinematic sensibility that guided Wrest’s Lurker of Chalice recordings. Roaring fields of distorted guitars dissolve into hazy ambient soundscapes, experimental field recordings, and passages of acoustic neo-folk—like a deranged mind guided by cacophony of voices, howling and seething, each struggling to be heard amid the tangled web of noise. The dynamic shifts are thrown into relief by the album’s concision. At just 42 minutes, Die To This is shorter than many of his previous releases, but it is presented as composite whole, without distinction between the tracks, allowing the listener to properly experience the album as a singular event.
Like all LVTHN recordings, the composition and performance of Die To This reflects the distillation of Wrest’s polymathic mind alone; however, as with Scar Sighted, he once again enlisted the masterful assistance of renowned producer/engine-ear Billy Anderson in the recording, mixing and sequencing process. Also crucial to the final result was the mastering work of producer Colin Marston of The Thousand Caves who fine-tuned the sound to harness and channel the album’s chaotic energy while bringing to the surface details and dynamics hidden in the mix. Finally, despite being a highly skilled visual artist himself, Wrest enlisted Italian artist Django Nokes for the cover art, giving the album a unique visual aesthetic.
1. The Cruse of Wreath and Crescent
2. Never to Grieve Theirs
3. In the Guidance of the Blood of the Believers
4. The Wombless Hierodule
5. Heir Recreant
6. Within Their Deathtime
7. Again, Blessed With Blisters
8. Bound to Ever
9. The Blade Already Forgotten Your Name
PROFOUND LORE RECORDS online:
https://profoundlorerecords.com/
https://www.instagram.com/profoundlorerecords/
https://profoundlorerecords.bandcamp.com/
https://www.youtube.com/c/ProfoundLoreOfficial
https://linktr.ee/profoundlorerecords
https://x.com/ProfoundLore
https://www.facebook.com/profoundlorerecords
