Khost is comprised of Andy Swan (Final, Iroha) and Damian B (Carthage, Techno Animal, Deathless). Since their 2013 inception, the band has toured with the likes of Godflesh and Conan, performed with Asphyx, Locrian, Okkultokrati, Vodun, Moss, Anaal Nathrakh, Aluk Todolo, Final/JK Flesh, and many others. They have played as far abroad as Israel, and have collaborated with Eugene Robinson of Oxbow, Daniel Buess, and more. The band has also been remixed by D&B artists Hostage and Necrobia, Kevin Laska (Transitional, Novatron), Tunnels Of Ah, Satori, and more. This album comes from a world that is black and white, where colour has no reason to exist, and where the fog permeates the industrial landscape and floats languidly through the ruined factories in a permanent half-light where the sun never shines. A hinterland of low resolution transmissions interspersed with broad concrete columns of distortion that loom suddenly from the dim landscape which devastates the listener with nearly fifty minutes of entrancing yet hazardous tectonic doom-laced revulsion.
No-one in their right mind could ever call this a pleasant listening experience, it was never meant to be, but it is certainly compelling. The album was written and recorded during the winter of 2016-17, a time of great unease and sickness for the band which nearly resulted in the death of one member, and this has definitely impacted the sound. I have come across Cold Spring Records before, and they specialise in all forms of extreme media, but particularly in industrial, dark ambient, black ambient, Japanese noise, neoclassical, neofolk, orchestral, power electronics, noise, minimal, drone, doom, death industrial, dark soundtracks and experimental music. They may not always release albums that are nice to listen to, but they are often compelling and important, and such is the case here. Dark ambient, industrial and doom crunch together with Art Zoyd and Can to create something that very few will ever appreciate, but if this style of music is of interested then this is absolutely essential.
