High On Fire – De Vermis Mysteriis – Black Ice Vinyl 2 LP

High On Fire’s album De Vermis Mysteriis was produced by Converge guitarist Kurt Ballou at God City Studios in Salem, MA. The record marks the sixth devastating chapter in High On Fire’s gloriously unhinged metal saga. “It’s a fuckin’ awesome album,” Pike enthuses. “I think it’s kind of a cross between the experimentation of Death Is This Communion and the driving darkness of Blessed Black Wings. There’s plenty of thrashy stuff, but there’s also a lot of Sabbathy doom-type stuff.”

“We didn’t try to plan it all out this time,” he adds. “We kind of waited ’til we were on the spot and had to do something. We had the basic skeletons of the songs—we were prepared—but there was a lot of improvisation. There’s a lot of soul on this one, and it’s got a rollercoaster kind of feel.”

The album’s title (translation: “The Mysteries of the Worm,”) is a nod to a fictional grimoire conceived by the late, great Psycho author Robert Bloch in 1935 and later incorporated into horror master H.P. Lovecraft’s renowned Cthulu Mythos. “It’s a concept record, a little bit,” Pike offers. “I got this idea about Jesus Christ and the Immaculate Conception: What if Jesus had a twin who died at birth to give Jesus his life? And then what if the twin became a time traveler right then? He lives his life only going forward until he finds this scroll from an ancient Chinese alchemist who derived a serum out of the black lotus—which is actually in Robert E. Howard’s ‘Conan’ stories—and then he starts traveling back in time. He can see the past through his ancestors’ eyes, but his enemies can kill him if they kill the ancestor that he’s seeing through at the time. Basically, he keeps waking up in other people’s bodies at bad times. It’s kinda like that old TV show Quantum Leap. Kurt actually pointed that out to me after I told him the idea. But whatever—time travel is a killer concept.”

Side A

1. Serums Of Liao

2. Bloody Knuckles

3. Fertile Green

Side B

1. Madness Of An Architect

2. Samsara

3. Spiritual Rights

Side C

1. King Of Days

2. De Vermis Mysteriis

3. Romulus And Remus

Side D

1. Warhorn

MNRK RECORDS LP
UPC: 0634164648817
Release Data: 02/04/2022