The first band I ever worked PR with hired me again to work on their second album and I was so pleased. Seeing Everest Queen’s growth and evolution has been so heart-warming, leading to an even more confident and versatile album than their debut. Murmurations sees Everest Queen expand to a quartet, delivering a more varied sound with influences of post-rock, ambient and psychedelia atop of their progressive sludge metal foundations. As a wonderful bonus, I got to experience this incredible work on CD, cassette and vinyl formats. Go pick one up and experience this immersive album for yourself.
ACCOLADES
“Murmurations shows the band finding their voice and using it louder than ever.”
~ Distorted Sound
“The bombastic explosions that occur become more endearing upon repeat listens.”
~ The Sleeping Shaman
“Digging out vertiginous footholds, the route they’ve chosen is already proving fascinating.”
~ Metal Hammer
FROM THE PRESS KIT
Murmurations is the acclaimed follow up to Hertfordshire based post-sludge quartet Everest Queen’s 2019 debut Dead Eden. This sophomore record shows a growth and deepening of Everest Queen’s sound, finding their most detailed and expansive songs to date. Murmurations builds vastly on their progressive sludge metal upbringing, exploring greater sonic depth. The band also brave introspective lyrical themes drawn from personal challenges and traumas, expressed in catharsis through a spiritual and psychological lens.
Murmurations opens in familiar, yet sharpened ground with a titanic barrage of angular sludge riffs on ‘Sunken Thorn’, followed immediately with an energetic riff workout on ‘Treachery & Shadows’. But what lies beyond draws from a greater pool of influences, especially from post-metal, space rock, ambient and drone. Meditative tribal drumming and whirring drones on the title track transcend into Floydian guitar landscapes colliding with the dreaminess of Cocteau Twins on ten minute epic ‘Dormant River’. The melancholic and stirring post-rock of ‘Divergence’ then builds as a heavy, cerebral journey into the reflective finale ‘The Burial’, pairing hushed clean guitar and harmonious singing with monumental riffs – a lament on death, grief and the beyond, spun with direct heartfelt honesty.
With the band members harbouring plenty of sound engineering experience – and guitarist Adam Taylor previously assisting in the recording of Pupil Slicer’s outstanding Mirrors album – Everest Queen felt confident enough to self record and mix Murmurations from the ground up. This has allowed the band to take more risks, explore new horizons and make their most personal record to date.
This is Everest Queen as you’ve never heard them before.
Released September 30th 2022 on Vinyl, CD, Cassette and Digital by Surviving Sounds & Trepanation Recordings.
PR TRAIL 