Unearthly Trance is a sludge metal

Sludge metal

Sludge metal is a subgenre of heavy metal that melds elements of doom metal and hardcore punk, and sometimes incorporates influences from southern rock, stoner rock and grunge. Sludge metal is typically abrasive; often featuring shouted vocals, heavily distorted instruments and sharply contrasting...

/doom metal

Doom metal

Doom metal is an extreme form of heavy metal music that typically uses slower tempos, low-tuned guitars and a much "thicker" or "heavier" sound than other metal genres...

 trio from Brooklyn

Brooklyn

Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...

/Queens

Queens

Queens is the easternmost of the five boroughs of New York City. The largest borough in area and the second-largest in population, it is coextensive with Queens County, an administrative division of New York state, in the United States....

 New York, composed of guitarist-vocalist Ryan Lipynsky, bassist Jay Newman, and drummer Darren Verni. They were formed in 2000 and have released material on leading labels of the genre like Southern Lord, Rise Above Records

Rise Above Records

Rise Above Records is a London, England based independent record label owned by Lee Dorrian . It is named after a Napalm Death song from their EP Mentally Murdered. It was formed in the late 1980s and originally made to sell live releases by Napalm Death and S.O.B., but by 1991 had changed to cater...

 and Relapse Records

Relapse Records

Relapse Records is an independent record label based in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania. It was founded by Matthew F. Jacobson in 1990.-History:The label was started by Matthew F. Jacobson in August, 1990 in his parents' basement in Aurora, Colorado...

 to which they are still signed today. They are also considered by critics one of the leading acts in the doom metal scene and have been touring constantly since their foundation, having shared tours with notable bands such as Sunn O)))

Sunn O)))

Sunn O))) is an American doom metal band known for its synthesis of diverse genres including drone, ambient, noise, and black metal. Supported by a varying cast of collaborators, the band has two core members: Stephen O'Malley and Greg Anderson .-History:Sunn O))) is named after the Sunn...

, Pelican

Pelican (band)

Pelican is a post-metal quartet from Chicago, Illinois.-Biography and description:The band is known for its dense combinations of different melodies and extended track lengths. Its distinctive sound draws from stoner rock, doom metal, post-rock, and other influences...

, Electric Wizard

Electric Wizard

Electric Wizard are a stoner metal band from Dorset, England that formed in 1993. The band have since recorded seven albums, at least three of which are now considered to be landmarks of their genre: their self-title debut, Electric Wizard, Come My Fanatics..., and Dopethrone...

 and Morbid Angel

Morbid Angel

Morbid Angel is an American death metal band based in Tampa, Florida. UK music magazine Terrorizer ranked one Morbid Angel album in its “Top 40 greatest death metal albums”, with their 1989 debut Altars of Madness appearing at number 1...

. Their latest album, V, has been recently released by Relapse Records

Relapse Records

Relapse Records is an independent record label based in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania. It was founded by Matthew F. Jacobson in 1990.-History:The label was started by Matthew F. Jacobson in August, 1990 in his parents' basement in Aurora, Colorado...

, and was produced by Sanford Parker, leader of fellow Relapse label mates and post-metal

Post-metal

Post-metal is a music genre, a mixture between the genres of post-rock and heavy metal.Hydra Head Records owner and Isis frontman Aaron Turner originally termed the genre "thinking man's metal", demonstrating that his band was trying to move away from common metal conventions...

 experimentalists Minsk

Minsk (band)

Minsk is a doom metal/post-metal band from Peoria, Illinois founded in 2002. They are signed to Relapse Records. Self described as "psychedelic metal", their songs tend to start out as slow and simple, and become heavy and complex towards the end...

. Ryan Lipynsky also fronts the black metal act The Howling Wind and experimental hardcore unit Pollution

Pollution

Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into a natural environment that causes instability, disorder, harm or discomfort to the ecosystem i.e. physical systems or living organisms. Pollution can take the form of chemical substances or energy, such as noise, heat or light...

.

Musical style

Although categorised as doom metal

Doom metal

Doom metal is an extreme form of heavy metal music that typically uses slower tempos, low-tuned guitars and a much "thicker" or "heavier" sound than other metal genres...

, Unearthly Trance's music draws inspiration from other forms of extreme music, such as black metal

Black metal

Black metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal music. Common traits include fast tempos, shrieked vocals, highly distorted guitars played with tremolo picking, blast beat drumming, raw recording, and unconventional song structure....

, death metal

Death metal

Death metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal. It typically employs heavily distorted guitars, tremolo picking, deep growling vocals, blast beat drumming, minor keys or atonality, and complex song structures with multiple tempo changes....

, crust punk

Crust punk

Crust punk is a form of music influenced by anarcho-punk, hardcore punk and extreme metal. The style, which evolved in the mid-1980s in England, often has songs with dark and pessimistic lyrics that linger on political and social ills...

 and drone music

Drone music

Drone music is a minimalist musical style that emphasizes the use of sustained or repeated sounds, notes, or tone-clusters – called drones. It is typically characterized by lengthy audio programs with relatively slight harmonic variations throughout each piece compared to other musics...

. Their songs are usually quite long, past the five minute mark and build slowly and oppressively with pounding drums and slow, loud and distorted guitars and bass buried under thick layers of feedback. The vocals are usually very harsh under the form of distorted screams, and the lyrics usually deal with themes of the occult. Unearthly Trance also ventures into more experimental sounds from time to time like ambient

Ambient music

Ambient music is a musical genre that focuses largely on the timbral characteristics of sounds, often organized or performed to evoke an "atmospheric", "visual" or "unobtrusive" quality.- History :...

 and noise music

Noise music

Noise music is a term used to describe varieties of avant-garde music and sound art that may use elements such as cacophony, dissonance, atonality, noise, indeterminacy, and repetition in their realization. Noise music can feature distortion, various types of acoustically or electronically...

, giving their music a more introspective, dark and progressive vibe.

Discography

Studio albums

• Season of Seance, Science of Silence (2003)
• In the Red (2004)
• The Trident (2006)
• Electrocution (2008)
• V (2010)

Extended plays

• Lord Humanless Awakens/Summoning the Beast 7" ( Southern Lord 2001)
• V.V.V.V./Frost Walk with Me 7" (Parasitic Rec 2003)
• The Axis Is Shifting 10" (Banana Hammock 2007)
• Eleven Are the Voices 10" (Land O'Smiles 2007)
• Psychological Operations (split 10" with Suma) (Speakerphone Recordings, Grimmgrinner records 2008)
• Night Of The Vampire b/w Stand For The Fire Demon (split 7" with Minsk on Parasitic Rec) (2009)
• Sabbath Of Spirals b/w The Glorious Dead (split 10" with Ramesses on Future Noise Rec) (2009)
• Obscene Truth & Headless/Heartless b/w Sorceries of Plague (split 7" with Aldebaran on Parasitic Rec) (2009)
• Eternal Frost b/w Servants Of The Warsmen (split 7" with Volition) (Wolfsbane Records 2009)
• Unearthly Trance/The Endless Blockade (split 12" with The Endless Blockade) (Chrome Peeler Records 2010)
• Unearthly Trance + Wooden Wand (split /cover from Charles Manson Songbook on Chrome Peeler Records) (2010)
• Unearthly trance & Suma collaboration 12" (2010 Throne Rec)
• Unearthly Trance + Fleshpress Split (Throne Rec) (2011)