Birthed from a quarantined manic episode, Severed Boy are a duo comprised of Nicholas Wolf and Reid Calkin, both of Lunglust. The band’s public debut, Tragic Encounters features 20 minutes of upsetting and uncomfortable death-doom, squarely focused on the absolute worst acts committed by the human mind and body. Viscous yet virile, tar-thick but not without upticks in speed, and cunningly crushing and atmospheric in equal measure, Severed Boy’s first strike is a wholly auspicious one, suggesting more miasmic mastery to come.
And thus does form meet content, and moniker matching same. As Wolf explains, “When I was writing the songs and starting to think about what the lyrical content would be, I wanted to focus on how people could be capable of acting out such horrible acts on each other – whether it’s not caring, or in this case, NOT KNOWING. There’s a sample from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein in that drone track [‘Agony and Despair’]. I started to fixate on the subject not having a conscience like the monster, or being able to just turn off the conscience. The name Severed Boy is the idea that someone could sever the actions of their mind from the actions of their body, and the consequences of doing so.”
Written, performed, mixed, and mastered by the band at Wolf House, Tragic Encounters features artwork by Form Terror Growth and logo by Heavy Hand. On evidence of this debut effort, try cutting yourself off from Severed Boy!
Released by:
Caligari Records (United States), 2021.