The heavy genre-agnostic duo Ragana started in Olympia, Washington more than a decade ago. Band members Maria and Coley — no last names given — trade off vocals and instruments, and they make a vast, epic, desolate sound that draws on black metal, screamo, doom, and the most paralyzingly depressing indie rock from their Pacific Northwest environs. Ragana’s last album was 2017’s You Take Nothing, and they followed it with Let Our Names Be Forgotten, their 2018 split with Thou, and their 2019 EP We Know That The Heavens Are Empty. (Great titles.) Today, Ragana announce plans to release their new album Desolation’s Flower, and they’ve shared the epic title track.

Ragana are now based in both Olympia and Oakland, and they signed with the Flenser last year. This seems like a pretty-ideal combination of band and label. Ragana have spent the last few years working on the songs from Desolation’s Flower. The title track opens the album, and it stretches over eight and a half pulverizing minutes. Given that the band started because Maria noticed Coley wearing a Wolves In The Throne Room shirt in their grocery store’s beer aisle, it makes sense that there’s some of that band’s vast, ritualistic black metal in “Desolation’s Flower.” In this case, though, it feels a little more focused and personal, without losing the overwhelming sweep. Below, check out “Desolation’s Flower” and the new album’s tracklist.

TRACKLIST:
01 “Desolation’s Flower”
02 “Woe”
03 “Ruins”
04 “DTA”
05 “Winter’s Light Pt. 2”
06 “Pain”
07 “In The Light Of The Burning World”

Desolation’s Flower is out 10/27 on the Flenser.