Chicago drone-doom veterans Buried at Sea haven’t had much chance to enjoy the cult following they’ve developed since parting ways in the mid-aughts. The shows on their current west-coast tour are their first since 2011, when they played the Alehorn of Power festival—and at that point, it’d been nearly seven years since their previous gig.
Guitarist and vocalist Sanford Parker attributes the mystique that’s grown around Buried at Sea to the band’s brief life span and relative obscurity—they made just a few short tours during their original run, which began in 2001, and they were far from prolific in the studio. Despite Parker’s notoriety, both as a producer and as a member of several high-profile bands (Nachtmystium, Minsk, Corrections House), folks he runs into at shows sometimes don’t know about his role in Buried at Sea. Often they’ve never seen the group before. More than one person, he says, has told him something like “I’ve been waiting ten years for this moment.”
The Buried at Sea lineup still includes Parker on guitar and vocals, Jason Depew on guitar, and Brian Sowell on bass and vocals, but drummer Bill Daniel couldn’t do this tour—he’s been replaced, at least for now, by Brandon Pierce, formerly of doom band Ancestors and now of Deth Crux, who play 80s-style horror punk. Pierce lives in Los Angeles, as does Sowell.
On Wednesday, November 25, Buried at Sea play their second Chicago show in more than a decade, headlining Reggie’s Rock Club with the Atlas Moth, Sweet Cobra, and Something Is Waiting. They’ll be selling CD copies of a new reissue of their sole full-length, 2003’s Migration. A double-LP gatefold edition with an etched D side is due shortly on War Crime Recordings, the label Parker founded with his Corrections House bandmate Bruce Lamont (Yakuza, Bloodiest). And Heavy Cream Records is releasing a cassette version that includes Buried at Sea’s 2002 demo on the B side—it includes the track “The Aquanaut,” which I embedded in my Beer and Metal post about Aquanaut Brewing.
The hugeness and density of Migration make it sound thrilling and terrifying even today, which is saying a lot considering the exponential gains in prestige and popularity that doom metal has enjoyed during the past ten years. The album is like the ash column from a colossal volcanic eruption, towering into the upper atmosphere and slowly getting bigger as the sky gets darker. You know you’re fucked when it reaches you, and there’s no point in trying to flee, but some part of your brain can’t help but get off on just how hair-raisingly awesome it is.
I’ve already spent several hours this week letting this monster of a record tenderize my head. Won’t you join me?