The year 2018 saw XASTHUR reaping the rewards of frenzied creativity with two albums hitting the street: first "A Misleading Reality" and then "Other Worlds of the Mind". At the time, both albums were originally released under the name NOCTURNAL POISONING, but were later added to the canon of the prime band and redesignated accordingly by the artist. Although the expression had shifted from black metal to a more acid folk-like approach, the spiritual core of the music remained the same. XASTHUR meticulously chronicled the experiences of many Americans and folk around the globe that failed to meet the relentlessly rising cost of merely existing. All the elements that made the band unique are still there on "A Misleading Reality": the ominous and deranged, the melancholic brooding and the dreamlike, the sinister and the pain. It's high time to lift this overlooked musical treasure from the gutter again and it will be released on vinyl for the first time. XASTHUR were conceived by vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Scott Conner in California, USA in the year 1995. The project started out in the vein of bleak black metal in the tradition of the Nordic second wave. 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 extreme genre. In 2010, Scott announced the end of XASTHUR and returned with an acoustic dark folk project under the banner of NOCTURNAL POISONING. In 2015, the American artist returned to the name XASTHUR, but insisted that his black metal days were over. With "Inevitably Dark", XASTHUR have partly lifted the self-imposed ban on black metal, simply because Conner felt like it and therefore did it.
Tracklist:
01. Which Mind Is Using Yours
02. Elsewhere From Here
03. Word On The Street
04. Murky Side Of The Tracks
05. No Telling Time
06. Closed For The Winter
07. Refund On Paradise
08. Gambling Your Mind Away
09. Stealing From The Poor
10. Desert Snowfall
11. A Misleading Reality
12. Silenced By The Flood
13. Has Been
14. If The Thought Counted (Part 2)
15. Casualties Of The City
2LP Gatefold (black vinyl), padded inner sleeves and protection sleeve