Sightless Pit brings together three of the most ambitious and prolific minds in heavy music today. The trio, comprised of Lee Buford of The Body, Kristin Hayter of Lingua Ignota and Dylan Walker of Full of Hell, combine their profound talents and eclectic tastes to make music that is defiantly original and emotionally sublime.
The trio is set to release their debut album, Grave of a Dog, on February 21 via Thrill Jockey. Grave of a Dog was crafted without any clear rules or guidelines beyond their desire to work with one another. The central pillar to what coheres the three into a unified voice throughout the album is a shared bleak vision of existence and a willingness to follow each other into bold new territory. While their collaboration borrows keystones from each members’ musical arsenal, from Buford’s singular percussion and production to Walker’s venomous howl to Hayter’s virtuosic voice, in tandem the trio carve out a path all their own for a wildly dynamic and exhilarating experience.
Grave of a Dog was recorded throughout 2017-2019 at Machines With Magnets by Seth Manchester. The album recording process was extensive and intentional. Stretching over the course of two years, recording sessions by individual members shaped songs and continued to shape and inspire the next session be it by an individual or a pair. Walker describes the album’s core themes as being “about the anonymity of struggle, the darkness of a lifetime wasted warring against nature, god and everything else, only to be defeated… nothing… the end.” Throughout the album, Sightless Pit embody those struggles through building oceans of tension. A diversity of instruments and arrangements subvert expectations at every turn and bring new depth to each passage with the band utilizing samples of contra bassoon and Rufai mystic rituals while doing away with guitar entirely. Sightless Pit is a group of expansive ideas, extensive experience working together and shared vision. Over the course of the eight tracks, the trio reflect the extremes and emotional weight of their world view through elegiac dirges, driving beats, explosive crescendos. Together, three strong voices unite to create a work of remarkable clarity of expression of enormous sorrow, futility and most of all, beauty.
The first single is Kingscorpse, which pretty much sounds like what you’d expect from these three: noisy, horrific, and strangely accessible. Listen to it on the their basecamp, here: https://sightlesspit.bandcamp.com/
