Over the course of nine albums and a host of split-singles, EPs, and occasional demos, XASTHUR's individual, particularly depressive style became highly regarded within the genre, and the band became seen as one of the most important spearheads of US black metal. XASTHUR were originally conceived by vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Scott Conner in California, USA in 1995 as a bleak black metal project in the tradition of the Nordic second wave. With the sharp observing eye of a passionate chronicler such as the giant of American folk BOB DYLAN, the stories that Scott feels compelled to tell as a musician are also driven by personal experiences. As if channeling the intense atmosphere of Neil Gaiman's novel 'American Gods' and later David Lynch movies, mastermind Scott Conner captures the vacant stares of opiate addicts, hungry eyes of the homeless and dispossessed, the endless horizons of the Midwest, rain dripping mountain forests as well as urban nightmares of the rust belt. 250 on cassette, vinyl record available at Appalachian Noise Records.With 'Victims of the Times', XASTHUR deliver an acid folk road trip through the dark underbelly of the American dream.

DIGITAL NOT AVAILABLE ON DAY OF PURCHASE. The overall feel of the record is akin to waking up in an asylum with no memory of arriving it is disconcerting at times, unnerving at others, but occasionally tricks the listener with subtle reprieves from the gloom only to be pulled back under all over again. Both men titans of black metal, each in their own right living pillars of dark music in America, have distilled their creative methods into this innovative approach to dark synth music. 'The Hallucination Tunnels' pairs Xasthur's unmistakable gift for macabre, discomforting soundscapes with the melody-writing and structural genius of Casket of Dreams. This record is an homage to the slow, downward spiral of man into chaos-the troubled mind's plea for the relief of permanent silence death. For the first time ever, Xasthur and Casket of Dreams have paired up to produce this 40-minute crawl through haunted and discordant corridors.

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