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Sulari's Deth Cult releases debut album on LCR
Nasty, Brutish and Skilled is return to Alternative form
Suldanor, Duchy of Suldanor
January 18, 5699


Deth Cult's debut album Nasty, Brutish, and Skilled debuts at Number 23 on Hot 100 Albums Chart

The Kalistani alternative scene has been on the lowkey for the past few years. Though it has definitely influenced other more recently popular genres, including the New Wave of RF and Art Rock, few strictly alternative records have found much traction on the Kalistani album charts for much of the last decade. That changed last week, when Sulari quartet Deth Cult released their debut album Nasty, Brutish, and Skilled on Last Chance Records. The album was independently produced by Nate Brown who is a friend of the band, and LCR studios were used for mixing, post production and mastering. LCR also distributes the record, and is running promotion.

"This record is simply alternative and skirts the quiet frontier of noise," said music critic Brenna Jones. "Because it returns to form of the Kalistani mainstream, it immediately sounds fresh and inspires a quasi nostalgia in listeners. I've had people say to me 'This sounds like Noise Alternative... I have really missed this in our music." And I say, no, it's actually just new Alternative, and yeah, I agree that I have missed it too."

"We're pretty steeped in art and noise," said bassist and singer Jill Diego-Garcia. "Avy (Schwartz, the band's main singer and rhythm guitarist) and I went to art school together, and I grew up listening to people like Anne Jean. She was a big influence for us. But we also were into old bands like Salgo and Swedeport grit bands like the Karma Rejects. We were listening to alt-folk, we were listening to all this stuff... When we were recording this record, we had the (5102) album Well, F-ck It by the Karma Rejects, playing nonstop. We are trying to make our version of all that, but tinted by everything that has happened in music since then."

The band has already built a following in the Sulari club scene, where they have gained a reputation for melting eardrums and playing very rowdy shows. "I get kind of nervous on stage," said Diego-Garcia. "So before a show I take a little something for the nerves, and it doesn't really get rid of my anxiety, but it does make me not really care, and when there's like moshing and stage diving and everyone's pushing everyone and jumping off the stage and everything, that kind of helps me like chill out, so I definitely am up on stage like fully encouraging people to go nuts, and if I can make that bass line gnarlier to get people fully into it, yeah, that's where we go. If we have to turn up the amps, that's where we go. If we have to pass out free drugs at the show that's where we go. Who cares. The energy is addicting, you know?"

Avy Schawartz feels the same: "We like to play with the dynamics a lot in our songs. quiet-Loud-quiet-SUPER LOUD. But we are making the quiet parts just short enough for people to almost catch their breath, almost... We don't want them to cool down at all. But we don't want anyone out there passing out. So we make it just maybe like 2 bars, if that before we're right back at it. No rest for the weary... if we're going they better be going too."

Deth Cult's album has debuted in the top 25, but the first unofficial single, "Slicing up Eyeballs" is slower to move up the charts. It is languishing in the low to mid 50s right now. However, as more people get access to the band, and they start playing outside the punk and rock clubs in Sulari, that is certain to change. "Well, our sales right now are based almost exclusively on Sulari listeners," said Schwartz. "We're known in Sulari, and we've played in Dana and Yoshimi. We're set to tour for the record now that it is released, so I think over the next few months, especially after we go to Kaliburg, if we can do there what we've done so far in the South, I think we have a hell of a chance."

You can check out Deth Cult's debut album Nasty, Brutish, and Skilled from LCR at your local record store, but check out their first single "Slicing up Eyeballs" right here.

[Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVyS9JwtFoQ]

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