Lychgate

Fusing church organ, intricate guitar interplay, rich wall-of-sound heaviness and thematic philosophical depth, London-based progressive black metal outfit LYCHGATE have been engaged in an intense process of evolution and refinement since their eponymous 2013 debut. LYCHGATE attracted significant attention following the 2015 release of their atypical and challenging second album 'An Antidote for the Glass Pill' via Finland's Blood Music. The band have since consolidated their unique juxtaposition of harmonious and disharmonious modern classical influences within sound-worlds comparable to the best forward-thinking progressive death and black metal bands of today. As evinced by latest EP 'Also sprach Futura', released via French label Debemur Morti in 2020, the band’s current music revels in frenzied technicality as it does subdued atmospherics. Horror, psychedelia, surrealism, history and modernism are further-evoked by lyrical sources from classics and philosophy - including dystopian novels from Lem, Zamyatin and Bulgakov - Jeremy Bentham's imagined prison (the Panopticon) and the 1927 film Metropolis. LYCHGATE's current line-up features songwriter and guitarist J. Y. "Vortigern", vocalist Greg Chandler, drummer T. J. F. Vallely and guitarist S. D. Lindsley.