Harassor are a rare gem glinting up malevolently from one of Los Angeles’ countless dark corners. The band was formed back in 2002, and after more than a decade of dues-paying and hell-raising, they've finally started attracting attention for their savage extreme metal hybrid. 2011 saw their inclusion on Southern Lord’s well-received Power of the Riff compilation, and two full-lengths later, Dais came calling to secure the rights for the trio’s fourth LP. The venerable experimental/noise label and the regressive-minded metal band seem like an odd coupling, but both parties seem chuffed with the arrangement and the result of their pairing speaks for itself. Into Unknown Depths is a delightfully dynamic approach to extreme metal’s usual grim-faced presentation. No two songs sound alike, but each one sounds deadly.
Harassor have been around the block and peeked behind the curtain, but remain sworn to the dark. Despite the band’s intentionally lo-fi, almost primitive take on its chosen genre, the band personnel is about as far from the basement-dwelling black metal stereotype as one can get. Between the three of them, this gang cuts their time between several other projects (Lord Time, Lord Foul, Moonknight), oversee operations at famed vinyl mecca Amoeba Records, and peddle poison with the their own Rising Beast and Universal Consciousness labels. Their sound is tough and unwelcoming, based heavily in black metal, death/doom, and thrash’s salad days.
Harassor’s habit of cherry-picking riffs and patterns from all three genres makes for compelling listening, as does the sheer amount of technical know-how deployed on these pitch-black compositions. With the caustic Pete Majors on the mic and the intimidatingly powerful Sandor GF holding down behind the kit, James “Roach” Brown III has the ideal settings to show off plenty of light-fingered fretwork while wrangling the wild array of riffs he’s conjured. Despite the lack of bass, the guitar tone on Into Unknown Depths is a force to be reckoned with, thanks to a particularly clever set up and some help from a famous friend: Brown tunes his E string down to A, running the whole unholy racket through a mammoth Peavey tube amp and one of doom legend Wino’s very own cabinets. That rumbling range comes in handy on lumbering death/doom cuts like the churning mid-tempo opener “Nine of Swords” or the perverse Incantation-biting riff that drives the ultra heavy “Unknown Depths”. “Increased Decay” lives up to its name by starting off with a straightforward black metal maneuver and unexpectedly breaking down into an elephantine doom riff at the halfway point.
Harassor are adept at slow-burning death/doom (and the opening chords on “Devoured by Time” make for an inadvertent throwback to Sound of Perseverance-era Death), but they’re great at thrashy, punked-up black metal. They take a more traditional route with the grim, tremolo-fueled tension and flickering double bass of “Frozen Soil” and foggy, depressive Finnish bent of “Winter’s Triumph”, but are at their best when they inject a little rock’n’roll into the proceedings. The choppy punk beat, hyper-aggressive vintage Darkthrone feel, and snarled opening of “Die Forever” and swaggering black’n’roll stomp of “M.D.P.” make for album highlights alongside “Strangulated”, which sees Pete Majors’ acidic vocals take the wheel for a quick and punk-infected two minute hate. The gloriously filthy blackened punk of “The Harassor” makes for a brilliantly self-aware anthem to carry the album through to its bitter end via raucous parting shot “Purest Hate.” It’s a satisfying conclusion to an uncommonly good album; with Into Unknown Depths, Harassor have wrought the first bloody signs of Armageddon upon the City of Angels.
