Qasu - A Bleak King Cometh

Mysterious UK-US experimental black metal trio Qasu release their debut album A Bleak King Cometh, co-released via Phantom Limb and extreme metal tastemakers Apocalyptic Witchcraft. Described by the band as “ancient future black metal”, the  record delivers a crushing and otherworldly sound that fuses blackened psychedelia, occult techno, and warped sound design into a singular, terrifying vision.  

Formed by members of “somewhat known” existing acts, Qasu hit an immediate and confident stride of finessed songwriting on their debut release. Its riffs are cataclysmic, whether agonisingly slow or razor sharp; its blastbeats are breakneck, meaty; its vocals howled with tortuous passions; its mythology crafted with narrative totality. Their own description - “ancient future black metal” - is apt. Qasu’s world is one of witch-burning, human sacrifice, heretical ritual, and arcane animism, but also of alien landing, paleofuturist sci fi, sequence codes, and stargates.  

Vocalist and electronics programmer Rahsaan Sagan propels the music into terraformed outer worlds with beat production and gauzy synthesis, but brutal blastbeats performed by drummer Nikhil Talwalkar (aka teen death metal prodigy Anal Stabwound) anchor the maelstrom with punishing precision, grounding the cosmic sprawl in physical intensity. Instrumentalist and songwriter Aldous Daniken offers a cryptically reflective note on the album’s title: “I don’t think we need to explain who the ‘Bleak King’ is,” he says, “but we have found ourselves in a dark time in human history.”

In knowing pursuit of the subversion of black metal tropes Qasu employ queasy and disorientating loops of moaning synthesis, autotuned vocals, new wave synths, techno kick drum, field recordings, taiko drumming, and pulsing 808 beats while psychoactive substance drips from the walls throughout.

Genre: Avant-garde / Black Metal / Noise