The split single is not a lost art. We don't get as many great ones as we once did, but something beautiful comes along every once in a while. On the right occasion, two different but complementary acts will join forces on a split. They'll both take the assignment seriously, and they'll come out with something powerful that works as a kind of unified statement. That's what Planning For Burial and Psalm do on their new split, which is out today on Portrayal Of Guilt's label.
Planning For Burial, the Pennsylvania musician Thom Wasluck's one-man experimental metal project, returned last year with It's Closeness, It's Easy, his first proper album in eight years. Before that, he helped assemble Your Voice Is Not Enough, the Low tribute album that came out on the Flenser. I definitely hear some Low influence — both from the band's early slowcore days and the way-out experimental rock of their later records — on "R.W.H.," the new Planning For Burial track from that split. It's a pretty, slow-building drone-rocker that spreads itself out over seven minutes.
New York trio Psalm haven't been around for long; their self-titled debut EP came out last year. "The Shroud Of Want," their song on the split, is the first thing I've heard from them, and it's fucking awesome. The Psalm track is just as long and the Planning For Burial one, and it's a lot fiercer, though they make their own kind of sense together. Rather than sustaining an uneasy mood, Psalm go for out-the-gate catharsis, crafting a howling epic that splits the difference between screamo and doom metal. This is the kind of track that forces you to pay attention to a band that might not have been on your radar before. Check out both tracks from the split below.
Planning For Burial and Psalm's split is out now on Portrayal Of Guilt Records.
