Otolith – Folium Limina (2LP Orange)

Rising from the ashes of Salt Lake City’s beloved avant-garde and symphonic doom juggernauts SubRosa comes new entity THE OTOLITH, who present their debut album “Folium Limina.”

Following the same muse of cataclysmic melancholy, SubRosa’s Kim Cordray, Levi Hanna, Andy Patterson and Sarah Pendleton (along with bassist Matt Brotherton) draw no line between beauty and doom, as The Otolith weave ghostly symphonic strings with crushing bass, guitar and percussion into a tapestry of velvet darkness across which voices call through time and space to arrive at a sea of liquid stars.

The overpowering feeling that emanates from the album’s tar-thick hymns is a stirring combination of exhaustion and determination, as if The Otolith took Samuel Beckett’s words to heart: “I can’t go on, I’ll go on.” Every wrenching emotion across the hour-long journey is honest and hard-earned, and you can feel the band digging deep to find a catharsis of collective release.

The world is a heavy place, and sometimes it’s good to sit with an old friend and pick up where you left off. With “Folium Limina,” The Otolith invite you to bring your burden and find it lightened – even a little – through the cleansing ritual of richly mournful atmospheric metal.