Vedic Hymns

It’s hard to think of two Madison bands more suited to work with each other on a joint LP than Kinit Her and Burial Hex. Both bands make the music the guards at the Black Gate of Mordor would have on their iPods, and both bands stretch their dark experimentalism to epic lengths. So Vedic Hymns is pretty much what you’d expect; drawing lyrical inspiration from British composer Gustav Holst and titular inspiration from ancient scrolls of religious text, Vedic Hymns is a haunting, sprawling, and howling dispatch from two of Madison’s darkest bands.

Vedic Hymns is a collaboration in the truest sense; Kinit Her’s Troy Schafer and Nathaniel Ritter lend their mournful strings and billowing electronics to four of five tracks, while Burial Hex’s idiosyncratic frontman Clay Ruby bellows from the pits of hell on the same number of songs. Burial Hex’s desolate 10-minute epic, “God Of War & Battle,” opens the album, daring the listener to quit with villainous vocals belching over a horror show piano. Kinit Her’s Deadwood soundtrack-ready solo track, “The Waters,” is the album’s centerpiece, marking the point where Burial Hex’s eccentric excursions meet with Kinit Her’s more restrained, and highly orchestrated, ritual metal (heard most recently on the solid Divine Names).

Vedic Hymns is one of the more challenging Madison LPs released this year, as it demands listeners take their vocals chanted and intensely screamed, their guitar parts deconstructed to howling electrical outbursts (“Dawn” and “Sky”), and their songs evoking foreboding religious rites. But those who stick it out will be rewarded with a menacingly expansive album that suggests that further collaboration between Burial Hex and Kinit Her would continue to yield great results.