Blood Monolith is an emerging death metal juggernaut featuring members of Nails, Undeath, Ulthar, and Genocide Pact. Formed by guitarist / vocalist Shelby Lermo (Nails, Ulthar) in 2023 after his exit from Vastum, the goal was to create something even uglier, weirder, and more aggressive operating out of his new home base in the Washington DC / Northern Virginia area. Guitarist Tommy Wall (Undeath) joined Lermo, and the music for Blood Monolith’s debut album was soon written. Bassist Nolan (Genocide Pact, Shitstorm) and drummer Aidan Tydings-Lynch (Deliriant Nerve, Brain Tourniquet) rounded out the lineup.
The band’s location ties deeply into their sound, as this epicenter of mass murder and corruption provides constant fuel for boiled-down anger (as well as a rich history of rebellion through music). The album’s title, The Calling Of Fire, invokes the internal and external summoning of rage to spit in the face of that seemingly unstoppable, towering evil, and the sonic excess within lands like a broad-daylight assassination.
Blood Monolith’s unique and unconventional concept and aesthetic sets them apart from the plethora of interchangeable death metal bands currently inhabiting the scene, and their music is miles beyond them as well. There is a DIY mindset and ethic present, but despite the punk and grindcore pedigree of its members, Blood Monolith plays crazed death metal of the highest order, influenced as much by classics like Morbid Angel and Cannibal Corpse as modern innovators like Defeated Sanity and Dead Congregation. Adorned with cover art by legendary Rudimentary Peni frontman Nick Blinko, The Calling Of Fire is a testament to all things musically frenzied and extreme, a brutally succinct statement of nihilism in a world beyond salvation.
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