Locrian

Locrian, "Drenched Lands"
Written by Creaig Dunton
Sunday, 29 March 2009
Almost disturbingly prolific, this is the latest (though that might change by the time you read this)
disc from this noise/drone/metal duo. While they have been cranking the releases out in their
relatively short career, they have at least been consistent with the quality of their releases, and
Drenched Lands, for all its metal look and presentation, is one of the more subtle releases I have
yet to hear.
At War With False Noise/Small Doses
The opening track, "Obsolete Elegy in Effluvia and Dross," sounds like it could be some black metal track, replete with
battle axes, corpse paint, and scrawny Nordic men posing in the snow, but instead it starts with simple, clear guitar
strumming that is allowed to breathe, with only a subtle underpinning of synth hums, which is a lot more pure and
open than a lot of their backcatalogue.
This is pretty much the lightest moment here, the next one, "Ghost Repeater," leads off with a buzzing amplifier and
subtle guitar scrapes. High frequency pings start to come in, giving a very rhythmic, but natural sense of minimalism.
Towards the second half of its lengthy duration, an anemic guitar squall comes in to push the treble levels even
higher. Unfortunately the mix mostly neglects the lower end of the sonic spectrum, and would benefit more from a bit
of bass added.
The brittle mix continues into "Barren Temple Obscured By Contaminated Fogs," but is more of an asset. The bits of
clear guitar and digital organ sound better skewed this way, and the screamed metal vocals and white noise sound a
bit more like a lo-fi Sunn O))), but more experimental and less metal. This contrasts the more bassy "Epicedium" that
showcases guitar and some ambient tones, a more open work that, once the taut guitar playing kicks in towards the
second half, has the structure and tension of a great film soundtrack.
"Obsolete Elegy in Cast Concrete" brings back the pained vocals that do sound very black metal, but are contrasted
with the distant electronic bells and more airy synths, where even the chugging metal riffs keep it away from boring
and clichéd metal territory. The disc ends with the 30-plus minute "Greyfield Shrines," which is the same live
recording I reviewed in its original LP form. While it loses some of its charm as a bonus track rather than a heavy slab
of vinyl, it still is a strong and well composed piece of live material.
I must say I’m a bit nervous since each release I’ve heard from this project is managing to be somewhat different, yet
still consistent with the overall vibe of the band, and have not lost any bit of quality. Any time I see this frequency of
music being released, I anticipate boredom to set in, but it has yet to happen with Locrian. - Brainwashed

Chicago based doom/dronesters Locrian--Andre Foisy and Terrence Hannum on guitars, keyboards and effects--are, like many of their peers in the world of Noise, reissuing choice cuts from their back catalogue in handsome CD and LP editions. With the exception of the opening "Drosscape", all the tracks on Rhetoric of Surfaces have previously appeared as CD-R and cassette limited editions--"Burying the Carnival" twice, in face--but on CD, cleaned up and mastered, the music can read a wider audience. Just as well too, because, as these two albums make abundantly clear, there's more to Doom Metal Dark Ambient than hooded zombies and ravens perching on gravestones.
The group take their name from the most obscure of the seven Greek modes, rarely used because of its prominent semitone--which might explain why that interval is so frequently used in Locrian basslines. Distortion and delay is still the name of the game, but Foisy's guitar work takes Metal-derived licks to another level, screeching like angry gulls above a cold, black sea of fuzzy drone. There are clear signs that this music is evolving into something more complex and structured, Foisy and Hannum crawling out of the murky ocean onto dry land like lungfish. "Amps Into Instruments" marks a move away from pedal point to chord sequence--the track uses (unintentionally, one supposes) the same riff as The Cure's "A Forest"--giving the music a sense of shape and forward motion often lacking in the genre.
For vinyl enthusiasts, Greyfield Shrines is a beautifully produced slab of marbled ash grey, two more wailing walls furred with sweat recorded live for WHPK Chicago in late 2007, and further proof that Foisy and Hannum know how to sustain tension for as long as it takes--theoretically forever, thanks to the inevitable locked groove.

--Dan Warburton
- Wire Magazine

Local heroes

Disturbing but memorable drone
By Andy Downing

Special to the Tribune
June 5, 2009

"This album sounds a lot like the way the abandoned parts of Detroit look." Few bands would take this statement as a compliment, but Locrian guitarist Andre Foisy sounds genuinely pleased when he hears the words, offering an excited, "Oh, thank you!" The drone duo's latest, "Drenched Lands," piles on decaying guitars, howling, disembodied vocals and crumbling synths that erode like long-abandoned buildings. The pair's tortured compositions transplant listeners to a post-industrial wasteland where rusted factories and skeletal skyscrapers serve as the only remnants of a once-great society. In many ways, this music would serve as a perfect soundtrack to Cormac McCarthy's bleak novel, "The Road." "We have a Portuguese friend who was listening to [the CD] in the hospital on a bunch of medication," says Foisy. "He said it wasn't a very good experience."

That this discomforting work was composed by a couple of prog rock-obsessed Columbia College professors makes it all the more interesting. Foisy and keyboardist/singer Terence Hannum, who started performing as Locrian in 2005, do not come across as doom-obsessed loners hellbent on chronicling humanity's destruction. Quite the opposite, in fact. Like modern day archeologists, the two find a sort of alien beauty in abandoned structures. "There's this tension we play with between horror and beauty," says Foisy. "In a sense, we are critiquing capitalism and our culture of buying-and-selling, but we find a lot of beauty in that." Along those lines, Foisy mentions a surreal video they're shooting at the Dixie Square Mall in Harvey, an abandoned shopping structure that served prominently in "The Blues Brothers" and now goes by a much simpler moniker: The Dead Mall. The band approaches its music with similar principles intact. Hannum, who integrates a number of prerecorded sounds into the crew's performances, refuses to make the switch to a digital sampler, preferring to use reel-to-reel tape because he likes how it degrades over time. "[The tapes] expand and lose their quality," continues Hannum. "It's very organic in a way. It adds to the overall ambience." Both musicians took circuitous paths to their particular brand of droning metal. Foisy grew up in upstate New York, and started playing guitar after his brother made him a tape of King Crimson's "Discipline." "I remember he wrote, 'No keyboards used in the making of this album' across the cover," says Foisy. "None of it sounded like real guitar to me." Hannum, in turn, discovered Black Sabbath after trying to convince his father that the 1980s hair-band Poison was "real heavy metal." "He made me spend my allowance money to buy 'Paranoid'," says Hannum. "It was like, what is this? From that point on I was hooked." - Chicago Tribune

Locrian
Burying the Carnival/Exhuming the Carnival
Not on MC

Another excellent cassette from Locrian. They have already achieved a brilliant post-Television minimalist slant with their guitar chores, and even if they don’t allow much room outside of that pattern, they truly fill the interior of it. This tape fulfills many interiorly structured soundtrack concepts, and don’t say it doesn’t. Feedback is a surge. Brilliant in a weird and minor way.
(April 2009)

Locrian
Plague Journal/Apocryphal City, Portents Fall (Bloodlust! 7”)

7” debut vinyl by a Chicago duo who spoon through the night mounted upon a guitar or a synth. It’s noisy piece of work, but the sonic textures are closer to rock (maybe born amidst the debris of a party Killing Joke just left). The first side is a ride through a wind tunnel, the flip is more like a gracefully arcing dive into a pile of inflatable balloons shaped like Fripp & Eno on the cover of No Pussyfooting. But they don’t pop when you hit them, they just blast you back into space with a bruise to show for your troubles. Go figure.
(May 2008)

Locrian/Colossus
Split
Heavey Nature MC
Locrian/Continent
Split
Locrian MC

First up’s a nice pair of drone-crafters from Chicago (Locrian) and New Hampshire (Colossus), who approach the concept from different angels, but still end up amid fields of bliss. Locrian start with a big old bell, then slowly pile on strings and keys until everything throbs…..When they meet Arizona’s Continent, Locrian spike and layer their sounds into something much less dronoid. Perhaps in anticipation of Continent’s course-tongued Metal riffage.
(October 2008) - Wire Magazine

Locrian "Burying
The Carnival /
Exhuming The
Carnival"
Locrian

Sometimes the gap between
structure and noise can
seem that little bit closer, acts like Locrian forming
tentative unconscious bridges between the two. Clouds roll down through “Burying The Carnival”, billowing buildings like a tsunami pouring through the pageant. Serrated echoes spin past the speakers, Locrian further perfecting their brand of firmly placed brick and mortar slaughter. Both their loop-andheave guitar shredding and the candour of their reality-rooted atmospheres take equal placing, this side of the cassette balancing both on the limits of unforgiving. Locrian’s music makes its point in beleaguering much of their peer group, maybe there’s
something in the air but this piece feels like rolling
tanks and the confused brunt of burn-out scrambled radio communications.

“Exhuming The Carnival” is a more liminal piece, its border falling between post-rock’s looser ideas and the warped slow collapse of buildings. Daunting and uninviting with its mood hanging low in the sky, the peals of guitar anchored to earth via silken webs. More of a reconsecration than the sweat, mud and stench of an exhumation – this cassette is well worth
digging out. (14 January, 2009)


LOCRIAN
DRENCHED LANDS
(AT WAR WITH FALSE NOISE /
SMALL DOSES)

With the exception of the previously released and loudly
mammoth Greyfield Shrines, this
Locrian LP sounds like a further step inwards towards a more emotionally bleak intensity. At the tipping
point between wintry post-rock and treachery-fuelled drone is where Drenched Lands does its best work. There’s a heavily apparent use of revulsion throughout, the vocals just
the black icing on the insect-inhabited cake. There’s room for delicacy, too, on ‘Epicedium’, a golden hazed
fen of rolling feedback that stretches out all too briefly at eight and a half minutes. After being dragged through the depths of this album, everyday life ends up looking like a
lavatory full of fool’s gold. The sun won’t always come up tomorrow.

LOCRIAN
GREYFIELD SHRINES
(DIOPHANTINE DISCS)

Two massive pieces of noise/
drone/metal ritual exploration locked in a landscape
of left-handed black urbanity. Staged in slow, detailed demolition movements, Locrian have a focus that doesn’t fall into either chin stroking or weeded out jam-mode. Generating
the atmosphere of a dark that’s
definitely of this world and era - no rambling basement bullshit for this duo - Greyfield Shrines manifests
the sound of jackals seeking prey in abandoned malls. Locrian’s vision is an internalised one, a view that’s expressed through ferocious volume with a finger than remains on the trigger guard.


LOCRIAN / KATCHMARE
DROSSCAPE / SCARAB
(PILGRIM TALK) 7”
pilgrimtalk.com
Katchmare spit noise between
casual frequency dips, which all
ends up as a load of revving on a busted throttle more than it does anything else. But then there’s the flipside, Locrian making the vinyl worthwhile with their on-and-off medicated drone of unmuzzled emotion. Sound spills out and over the turntable like tentacles of liquid unaffected by all that gravity shit, Locrian are continuing an unfathomably
powerful streak here.

- Rock-a-Rolla & Foxy Digitalis

Indian, Bloodiest, Locrian
When: Mon., Jan. 19, 9:30 p.m. 2009
Phone: 773-276-3600 or 866-468-3401
Local doom-drone duo Locrian recently released Rhetoric of Surfaces
(Bloodlust!), their first proper CD after a string of cassettes and CD-Rs,
and Greyfield Shrines (Diophantine Discs), their first vinyl LP, and both
sound like the music you’d expect to hear piped into a museum of the
exorcism arts. Looming monoliths of distorted synthesizer erode in
slow motion while a brittle, hazy guitar line wavers slowly back and
forth like a rusty weathervane creaking in the wind. And then: the
voices. Disembodied howls rising from the devil’s asshole. Greyfield
Shrines is a single long-form composition—how long depends on you,
since there’s a locked groove at the end of side one—and its beautiful, eerie tones are matched by its beautiful, eerie packaging. It’s pressed on tornado gray vinyl in an edition of 300 and the cover is a silver-on-black negative image of an abandoned shopping mall. On Rhetoric of Surfaces the title of the closing track, “Amps Into Instruments,” serves as both statement of purpose and pithy thumbnail of the band’s music—the better-known half of Locrian, multi-instrumentalist Terence Hannum, just pitched Continuum a proposal for a book about Earth 2. Indian headlines; Bloodiest
and Locrian open. —J. Niimi

Locrian's dark topography
by Peter Margasak on June 5th 2009 - 3:08 p.m.
Metal, in all its many varieties, isn't a real partof my listening regimen. I like some of it fine, but it's not something I follow too closely or play at home. So I'm still not sure why people better acquainted with the scene classify Chicago duo
Locrian (Andre Foisy and Terence Hannum) as any kind of metal at all.
I first heard about Locrian from Jeremy Bushnell of Rebis Records a couple of years ago, when I was writing a story about the flood of drone projects emerging from Chicago, but I didn't actually get around to hearing them until recently. There's certainly an element of drone in Locrian's music: a steady, rippling hum, produced by a combo of synth, organ, and other electronics, throbs in the background of almost every track. But just as or more important is the guitar action in the foreground. Sometimes the extended lines are skittery and gnarled, and at other times they
groan and moan in slow, winding arcs; often the band forgoes the explosive stompbox treatment that seems customary in metal. Certain pieces are darkly meditative, others claustrophobic, and still others harrowing and cathartic. Locrian have demonstrated an impressive sonic range and curiosity; instead of obsessing microscopically over a single kind of sound, they mix things up, and everything I've heard feels equally committed. Even the occasional mountain-man vocal howls, which to my ears are a bit out of place, are deployed in a way that's Locrian's own.
The duo recently released Drenched Lands (At War With False Noise/Small Doses),
their most varied outing yet. There's the brittle, muffled melodicism of the brief
opener, "Obsolete Elegy in Effluvia and Dross," the postindustrial feedback and
synth drone of "Ghost Repeater," the hoarse, demonic screams and coiled tension
of "Barren Temple Obscured by Contaminated Fogs," the blend of ethereality,
hypnosis, and turbulence on "Epicedium," and the alternatingly lacerating and
chugging guitar noise, soothing synth beds, and submerged lamentations of
"Obsolete Elegy in Lost Concrete." (On second thought, I guess those song titles
are a pretty clear cue to file these guys under "metal.") The CD also includes the
entire 30 minutes of "Greyfield Shrines," previously released last year on vinyl.
Locrian plays Saturday at the Matchitehew Assembly, the two-day black-metal and
noise festival that's the subject of this week's Sharp Darts.
- Chicago Reader

Locrian—Drenched Lands
Released: April

Ambient experimental duo Locrian patiently established its presence in Chicago's noise and metal scenes by issuing preview CD-Rs at shows before its official full-length, Drenched Lands, dropped earlier this year. If nothing else, Locrian knows the value of patience—the kind that horror-movie directors use to milk tension and dread out of every possible moment on screen.

Lands starts off with detuned guitars playing sorrowful, suspended guitar chords, but they're eventually engulfed by buzzing, encroaching synth-noise. From there, pieces like “Ghost Repeater” slowly feed on instruments so drenched in distortion and delay that they sound like the air-raid sirens of Armageddon. If that sounds like a frightening listening proposition, well, no argument.

But because there’s no percussion on Drenched Lands, and the tempos don’t rise above a sepulchral crawl, there’s something strangely soothing about it—even when the band is screaming black-metal bloody murder over minor-key organs. Additionally, the desolate serenity of even the most chaotic of tracks sees that melody shines through (“Epicedium”). For the most part, though, Drenched Lands is unholy calm after the post-apocalyptic storm. Grade: A

by Jon Graef July 21, 2009 - The Onion Chicago

Blow Up Magazine (Italy)

Locrian
CD Drenched Lands
Small Doses/At War With False Noise
I duo Chicagoani Andre Foisy (chittara) e Terence Hannum (elettronica e voce) hanno alle spalle una bella sfilza di uscite in CDR, 7”, cassetta ed EP prima di questo con cui esordiscono portando al mondo la lora musica mutuata dai modelli SunnO))), KTL, Earth, /Ethenor e (almeno in parte) Fuck Buttons, Nonostante la nulla originalitá, i due sanno bene come e cosa fare con gli strumenti e hanno abbastanza fantasia per (almeno cercare di) diversificari: Ghost Repeater reitera molto bene il tema chittara-droning + tastiere ambient Barren Temple Obscured by Contaminated Fogs aggiunge scale chittaristiche da estasi miminal con urla da scozzatoio, Eppicedium é una fibrillazione psichedelica in puro stile primi Pink Floyd, Obsolete Elegy in Cast Congrete un ruvido viaggio alle propaggini del metalnoise (comunque non toccata), e infine la lunghissma (oltre mezzora) di Greyfield Shrines, gla pubblicata su vinile, che funge da summa della loro proposta mettando insieme le dilatazioni alla Earth, l’orcurita dei SunnO))) e il sommesso e ricorrente appeal pink floydiano rivelandosi una splendida prova par chittara spasmodica e lacerata.

Come ditto, l’originalitá di questo CD e nulla e i luoghi comuni sono tutti al lora posto (non mancano neppure le campane a morto) ma i due sono veramente molto bravi nel tratteggiare un mix che riassume con creativita un mondo che in questi anni si e visto espandere – anche come attidudine – a liveli impensabili. Piacerá molto a chi gia si nutre di questi suoni e portrebbe essere un buon viatico per chi li ritiene indigesti perché il mood abbastanza palatabile e tutto sommato passatista (in fin dei conti questa é ‘solo’ musica psichedelica) portrebbe farli esplodere anche ‘commercialmente’, cioé in termini di visibilitá.
Stefano Bianchi


Octopus (France)
Locrian
Drenched Lands (At War With False noise / Import)

En matière d'ambient/drone/métalune certaine logiquestylistique semble s'être imposée derrière des groupes ou projet solo comme Nadja, Fear Falls Burning ou Sunn O))), des groupes qui – en attendant un prochain album de Sunn O))) annoncé comme plus "aéré" – continuent d'utiliser la tension électrique et l'impact physique qu'elle dégage comme moteur de leur musicalité extrême. Dire que Locrian n'abonde pas dans le même sens serait en partie inexact car ce duo de Chicago n'hésite pas par moments à malmener le vumètre, mais c'est davantage dans la mise en son de climats glauques, chancelants, finalement plus psychédéliques et hypnotiques que "décibéliques" - à l'image des 15 premières minutes de leur pièce (qui en dure 30), "Greyfield shrines", qui conclut l'album ou de l'évanescent "Epicedium"– que le décor se plante, immédiatement saisissant, irrémédiablement captivant. Les effets de réverbération bien en avant, Locrian distille une musique climatique qui s'inscrit plus directement dans un post-rock (très) ombrageux, nourri au black-métal fétide et à l'industriel synthétique mais également au protonoise de Slint ("Obsolete elegy in effluvia and dross") et à la doctrine nihiliste du Velvet Underground ("Ghost repeater"). On ressort donc un peu groggy de ce tableau sonore désabusé, sur lesquels s'épanchent quelques hurlements de trépassés ("Barren temple obscured by contamined frogs" – titre dédié à quelques français égarés ?) mais on ne peut s'empêcher d'y revenir tellement ça fonctionne. L'ombre qui pointe derrière la lumière, la tempête qui guette le calme apparent… N'est-ce pas dans cette attente paroxysmique que le meilleur se situe.
--Laurent Catala

Nos Açores Não Há Açores (Portugal)

Locrian - "Drenched Lands" (2009, At War With False Noise/Small Doses)

Uma toada soturna assombra oconjunto. Um orgão tétrico, um véu de ruído e distorção que tudo envolve, alguns acordes de guitarra esparsos e minimais. De repente, um grito lancinante chega-nos de um qualquer horizonte longínquo. Imaginamos que provenha do mais macabro dos hospícios. Ainda um sino que toca, macabro e lânguido, sem sineiro. Uma sensação de desespero e o odor nauseabundo da putrefacção pairam sob um céu plúmbeo. Os campos são áridos e estéreis. As urbes encontram-se desertas e em ruínas. Os habitantes há muito que se foram. Apenas restam algumas formas de vida parasitárias, que se consomem mutuamente, pois na terra já nada há.

Assim se vão construíndo as paisagens desoladoras que compõem "Drenched Lands", a estreia no formato longa-duração do duo Locrian. De pequenos e bem doseados elementos, quase espartanos, que seguindo a velha máxima gestaltista - o todo é maior que a soma das partes - se conjugam para criar um cenário atormentado e sufocante, onde o ambient drone é pedra de toque - ora em ciclos, ora em progressão crescente -, que tem tanto de aterrorizador, como de hipnótico e encantatório.

Uma verdadeira pérola negra, que me veio parar às mãos quase por acidente, e, sem dúvida, uma das promessas mais estimulantes de 2009, que urge ser descoberta por todos aqueles que apreciam o género.

Shoot Me Again (Belgium)

LOCRIAN
Drenched Lands (Small Doses/At War With False Noise)

Drenched Lands est le premier album de ce groupe de Chicago, LOCRIAN qui triture ses expérimentations sonores et électroniques dans les contrées du Dark Ambient au Black Metal depuis 2005.

Cet album commence gentiment. C’est avec une certaine musicalité que Obsolete Elegy In Effluva And Dross introduit le disque avant de céder sa place à une (infra) basse pulsative. Le ciel sombre devient carrément noir. Sur ce rythme cardiaque sinistre, les atmosphères abyssales vont progressivement se superposer et nous submerger.

Au fur et à mesure que les plages se succèdent, l’auditeur s’enfonce de plus en plus dans une nébulosité stridente où la voix sépulcral commence à résonner. (Pensez à KHANATE ).

Fort heureusement le glas sonne avec Obsolete Elegy In Lost Concrete qui clôture l’album (si on fait abstraction de la plage bonus de 30 minutes). Progressivement mais pas sans dommage, l’auditeur va être ramené à la surface par le biais de nappes plus chaleureuses.

Greyfield Shrines est une plage de 30 minutes qui s’écoute comme un tout. LOCRIAN l’a ajouté ici en bonus à son album déjà bien traumatisant. Greyfiel Shrines nous emmène plus dans des contrées boisées et froides, d’un temps où le loup régnait en meute sur le brouillard et où nul humain n’aurait osé s’aventurer dans la forêt après minuit. On entend les incantations noires et les esprits torturés, tels des sirènes en pleine mer, tentés d’alpaguer les villageois.

Lords of Metal (Netherlands)

Uit Chicago komt het tweetal A.Foisy en T. Hannum onder de naam Locrian op de proppen met hun nieuwste schijf ‘Drenched Lands’. De CD oogt al erg mysterieus qua cover art, maar de
muziek is des te vreemder. Weinig instrumentaria is gebruikt, behalve de keyboards en wat echorijke gitaarsnaren. Samen met wat samples en in enkele nummers wat teksten krijg je een duister en zwart beeld die de muziek je doet aanstaren. Het mooiste gebeurt dat in ‘Barren Temple Obscured By Contaminated Fogs’, waar een ijzige gitaar snaar zich ontwikkeld in een ijzingwekkende geschreeuw! Veel re-verb en veel echorijke drone passeren de draden van je hersenen. Als laatste track vinden we ‘Greyfield Shrines’, een meer dan dertig minuten durend nummer dat enkele maanden gelden op zichzelf als LP uit kwam. - Assorted

Andre Foisy and Terence Hannum are please that their band Locrian defies musical categorization. "We're not completely at home in the metal scenario or ambient or experimental," observes Hannum. "We're in a weird place, and I like it." In addition to playing synth and providing vocals for the band, Hannum is an installation artist who has exhibited at Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art and many other galleries since 2003. He and guitarist/bassist Foisy both teach at Columbia College Chicago as adjunct faculty.

As teenagers, Hannum and Foisy gravitated to local punk and hardcore scenes as a way to buck the status quo. Foisy grew up in a small town in northern New York state, and Hannum hails from the stifling retirement town of Naples, Florida. Through their respective ventures, both became fans of the French Canadian band One-Eyed God Prophecy. "Hardcore was a revitalization or a conscious effort of the people in my culture to create a more satisfying culture," recalls Foisy.

Following their introduction through a mutual friend and subsequent collaboration with their respective wives in the dark folk band Unlucky Atlas, Foisy and Hannum joined forces as a duo in December of 2005. They established a name by playing at small DIY venues such as record stores, lofts, and arts spaces, as well as rock clubs and the DNA Test Fest. The band's first studio release, Drenched Lands (Small Doses and At War With False Noise, 2009), is a polished journey led by dissonant guitar, wicked synths, and anguished vocals. In contrast, another recent release, the intense droning, noisy Rhetoric of Surfaces (Bloodlust, 2008), a compilation of previously unreleased and out-of-print cassette tape and CD-R tracks, reflects the sound through which the band has gathered a following during the past four years.

"I don't think that we fit in anywhere, but we feel most at home in the noise community in Chicago," says Foisy. Gaining support and encouragement among such varied groups as Bloodyminded, FaceWorker, and Winters in Osaka, Locrian developed its own aggregated sound. "Most people [in the noise community] are coming from, or really interested in, different places in music, from krautrock to power electronics," observes Hannum. And within its music, Locrian utilizes varying strains of music in order to make a statement. "The failure of urban planning, environmental collapse, and general decay is what is behind our music," says Hannum. "Something we hope to reflect is a journey through a dormant landscape where you're the only occupant."

Part of the journey to create this discordant sound is channeling ambient and black metal through each other. "We're approaching black metal through the lens of what Fripp and Eno were doing in the 70s, and the last song on Drenched Lands (“Greyfield Shrines”) we’re approaching through a riff from Obituary,” explains Foisy. By dipping into multiple musical genres and communities, Locrian pushes boundaries in the quest for exploration. “Our goal is to bridge the gap between experimental and black metal,” says Foisy.

In comparison to previous works, the tone on Drenched Lands is darker, with longer, more organic drones, and sharp pieces of feedback entering the frame. “The vocals are pronounced, which has to do with black metal and power electronics, and finding a happy medium between the two,” says Hannum. In similar fashion to Locrian’s archetypal themes of cities on the decline, the album revolves around the state of the world as a result of war, poverty, and other ills. Hannum and Foisy got the idea for the album’s title from William S. Burrough’s bleak novel “The Soft Machine”. “We wanted [the album] to be a memoir of some hazy civilization that’s gone,” explains Hannum.

Like a novel, the album has an introduction, middle and dramatic ending, taking the listener on a devastated yet addictive trip through a wasteland. “Like a noxious fog that erupts in the passages of more song and guitars washing up on a dingy shore,” explains Hannum.
- Alarm Magazine