For about a decade, the guitarist and vocalist Shelby Lermo has led the death/black metal trio Ulthar. When Nails returned with their ferocious comeback album Every Bridge Burning last year, frontman Todd Jones assembled a new lineup, and Lermo was part of it. Now Lermo is also the leader of Blood Monolith, a new death metal band that includes some of the most gifted and unrelenting players on the extreme-music underground.
Shelby Lermo started Blood Monolith in 2023, shortly after he left the band Vastum. The idea for Blood Monolith was for Lermo to make something even uglier and more bracing than his previous work, and he wanted to be able to operate around his Washington, DC-area homebase. Lermo wrote the band's upcoming debut album The Calling Of Fire with guitarist Tommy Wall, from the Rochester death metal revivalists and recent Stereogum Band To Watch Undeath. Eventually, he also brought in Genocide Pact bassist Mike Nolan and Brain Tourniquet drummer Aidan Tydings-Lynch. These people know how to make ugly, bracing music.
Lermo co-produced The Calling Of Fire with former Majority Rule member Matt Michel, who also mixed the LP. The cover art comes from Rudimentary Peni frontman Nick Blinko. The presumably Conan-inspired lead single "Prayer To Crom" is the first thing that we've heard from Blood Monolith, and it's an absolutely disgusting burst of death metal mayhem. Lermo says, "'Prayer To Crom' is the first song Tommy and I composed for this project, and I think it gave us a laser focus on where we should take the rest of the album. It is a mission statement, both musically and lyrically -- a sword cleaving a path to annihilation." Below, hear "Prayer To Crom" and check out the tracklist for The Calling Of Fire.
TRACKLIST:
01 "Trepanation Worm"
03 "The Owl In Daylight"
04 "Prayer To Crom"
04 "Viscera Vobiscum"
05 "Apparatus"
06 "Cleansing"
07 "Slaughter Garden"
08 "Pyroklesis"
The Calling Of Fire is out 5/26 on Profound Lore.
