Dutch doom voyagers Ggu:ll team up with The Devil's Blood frontwoman

If you’ve ever stared down a volcano, teetered on the very precipice of Hell, glimpsed the abysmal shuffling of The Great Old Ones beyond the porous membrane of the material world, or just perhaps, visited the Grand Canyon, you’ll know full well that the most intense, visionary experiences tend to occur when you’re standing on the very edge of the abyss.

Despite hailing from the same doom/psych epicentre as Roadburn Festival – Tilburg, Netherlands – the curiously named Ggu:ll (pronounced ‘ghoul’) haven’t just taken up residence on that very spot, they’re dangling over in the manner of some young, Russian daredevil performing inadvisable gymnastics on top of a skyscraper.

Released today via the far-sighted Ván Records, the label that brought you underground talismans The Devil’s Blood, The Ruins Of Beverast and King Dude, Ggu:ll’s debut album, Dwaling, is a doom-saturated tour of the precipice, surveying vast and inhospitable terrain below – both petrifyingly psychedelic and an emotional invocation, as if someone’s trying to draw it out by means of an arm down your throat.

If you’re still here, we have an exclusive preview in the imposing form of a video for the track Het Smerige Kleed Van De Ziel, featuring stunning guest vocals from none other than former The Devil’s Blood vocalist Farida Lemouchi. Crushing, searching and reminiscent in parts of Jarboe-era Swans, its slow-crawl, reverberating riffs sound like the last throes of existence and a rite of passage that’s going to set every nerve ending aflame.

“Join us in our pursuit to sing, dance and praise the abyss,” say the band themselves. So strap on your shock absorbers and steel yourself for the convulsive revelation that is Het Smerige Kleed Van De Ziel below!

Gaze upon Ggu:ll’s Facebook page here!

Having freelanced regularly for the Melody Maker and Kerrang!, and edited the extreme metal monthly, Terrorizer, for seven years, Jonathan is now the overseer of all the album and live reviews in Metal Hammer. Bemoans his obsolete superpower of being invisible to Routemaster bus conductors, finds men without sideburns slightly circumspect, and thinks songs that aren’t about Satan, swords or witches are a bit silly.