Premiere: The Otolith ‘Crossway’ – From Legends Of The Desert: Volume 4 With Eagle Twin
It’s an exciting day for us at Shaman HQ as we’re beyond stoked to bring you a track from the next instalment of the Legends Of The Desert series. Now at the infamous Volume 4 landmark, what is set to be a colossal slap of vinyl features two Utah heavyweights in the form of sludge and doom duo Eagle Twin and folk doomers The Otolith.
But before its release on the 20th September through our good friends at Desert Records, The Shaman is premiering Crossway, the near nine-minute folk and doom metal master class from The Otolith, about which the band says…
‘This song is our little serenade to Hecate. She is an often misunderstood and maligned deity. When you look into her origins and what she is known for, you will find a goddess who is associated with doorways, crossroads, and the moon. She is capable of both good and evil, just as we all are. One of her favorite animals is the black sheep or lamb, and knowing what it is to be a black sheep, we can relate.’
Now click play below and surrender to The Otolith and Crossway…
More On The Otolith, Eagle Twin & ‘Legends Of The Desert’
Legends Of The Desert series is the soundtrack to the New Wild West. The focus of the Legends Of The Desert is to provide a modern perspective to the antiquated ‘Wild West’ we have etched in our brains. These songs and tales are not told by the same ol’ perspective of the white male cowboy. These are narratives told by those who never got their stories heard. We will hear from musicians, artists, natives, outlaws, desert rats, desert dwellers, cactuses and mesas, ravens and roadrunners, snakes and endless skies.
The bands are curated by Desert Records owner, Brad Frye. The requirements for bands to appear on the Legends Of The Desert series must hit certain criteria, besides making original and amazing heavy desert rock/metal music. The bands must be located geographically in the American Southwest. The states within this boundary include California (southern part), Arizona, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Colorado, Oklahoma and Texas. The bands have to be currently active. They also are in line with the Legends Of The Desert series ethos of offering an updated perspective of Wild West. Fuck John Wayne and all the outdated Wild West bullshit that we have been fed by movies and media.
With Volume 4, Legends Of The Desert pushes the series into sonically weightier territory by featuring two of Utah’s mightiest bands; Eagle Twin and The Otolith. Once again it adorns artwork from Phoenix, Arizona based Illustrator Joshua Mathus and will be released 20th September 2024 through Desert Records.
The Otolith:
When the celebrated Salt Lake City band SubRosa announced its breakup in 2019, the heavy music community felt the loss of their uniquely elegant and intensely heavy atmospheric doom devotionals. Rather than wonder what velvet darkness might still await, however, four of SubRosa’s members swiftly emerged as a new entity called The Otolith. Following the same muse of cataclysmic melancholy, The Otolith is here to encircle you in the fire of their passion for heavy music.
Levi Hanna’s guitar and Matt Brotherton’s bass steer the ship in a thick, rumbling tandem, while Kim Cordray’s and Sarah Pendleton’s violins push from the center out, sometimes painting the canvas with sharp, melodic leads and others sawing deep into parallel riffing. Andy Patterson’s drums are thunderous and thoughtful, and when the band hits a huge, all-hands-on-deck downbeat, it feels like a mountain tumbling into the hungry sea.
You will find a familiar face of heaviness in The Otolith, but with a more pronounced emphasis on darkwave and neofolk, calling to mind Amber Asylum or Worm Ouroborus. Cordray’s and Pendleton’s vocals are often a lilting dance or somber incantation in close harmony, while Hanna’s bellowing roar is used sparingly but to towering effect. Although the interwoven strings and vocals rush along with graceful intricacy, The Otolith’s primary approach is full-stop heaviness, and they will rattle our bones with the earth-churning tumult of Amenra as well as the meditative trance of OM.
The Otolith is:
Kim Cordray – Violin, Vocals
Levi Hanna – Guitar, Vocals
Andy Patterson – Drums, Percussion
Matt Brotherton – Bass, Vocals
Sarah Pendleton – Violin, Vocals
Eagle Twin:
Eagle Twin is an American metal band formed in Salt Lake City, Utah by singer/guitarist Gentry Densley and drummer Tyler Smith. Eagle Twin‘s music could be broadly classified as doom metal or sludge metal, but also touches on progressive rock, blues rock, jazz fusion and psychedelic rock, featuring lengthy instrumental passages and Densley‘s gruff, half-chanted vocals, which occasionally veer into overtone singing.
About the foundation of Eagle Twin, Densley says, ‘Well, a lot of it comes from ‘the riff’ and the whole tradition of ‘the riff’. It’s something that I’ve become more conscious of – from Page and Iommi, down through people like Wino – the whole idea of people channelling ‘the riff’. I’m also interested in myths and mythology and the creation of myths, the scale of the universal consciousness and how these same stories pop up over the years – the whole idea of collective memory and looking at riffs the same way; the real language of ’the riff’. I also wanted to do more storytelling so there are probably influences from a lot of blues artists and also a lot of Mahavishnu influences; harmonically, I just started thinking about putting some more of that in, and there are elements of fusion jazz as well.’
Eagle Twin is:
Gentry Densley – Guitar, Vocals
Tyler Smith – Drums
Legends Of The Desert: Volume 4 Tracklist:
Side A – Eagle Twin
01. Horn Vs. Halo
02. Qasida Of The Dark Dove
Side B – The Otolith
03. Crossway
04. Phosphene Dream
Legends Of The Desert: Volume 4 featuring Eagle Twin and The Otolith will be unleashed on various vinyl pressings, limited compact disc and digital download on the 20th September 2024 through Desert Records. To help get this formidable split album released, you can also donate to the record’s Kickstarter campaign, which ends this Sunday, 25th August.
Label: Desert Records
The Otolith: Facebook | Bandcamp | Spotify | Instagram
Eagle Twin: Facebook | Bandcamp | Spotify | Instagram
