Aseethe

Iowa City's Aseethe craft slow, crushing doom metal shaped by drone music's repetitive and open-ended qualities, weaving together guitars, drums, and atmospheric electronics. Their foundational sound emerged through early efforts including the 2011 LP Reverent Burden and multiple split releases filled with expansive, noise-drenched epics. Later Thrill Jockey releases such as 2017's Hopes of Failure and 2024's The Cost represent the band's most direct and focused work to date.

The project began in 2007 as a solo endeavor by multi-instrumentalist Brian Barr, who was soon joined by drummer Eric Diercks. Together with Luke Tweedy on circuits, the group tracked the twenty-minute piece "Ill Omen," which served as the A-side of the 2008 split-EP Navitas Est Deus with Mauul. Aseethe next issued two split EPs alongside Shores of the Tundra, each featuring unique artwork and modestly altered track listings, with Barr handling all Aseethe material alone. In 2010 the band contributed the twenty-minute composition "The Armada" to a split-CD with Ghaust, recorded by the trio of Barr, Diercks, and bassist/vocalist Drew Bissell. This same lineup produced Aseethe's debut full-length Reverent Burden, issued in 2011 on the band's own Floating Cave label. The 2012 one-sided single "Red Horizon" drew its guitar riffs from Barn Owl's album The Conjurer.

Following Bissell's departure, synthesizer player Kevin Erhardt-Hansen joined Barr and Diercks, yielding the 2014 digital EP Burdens II, a collection of improvisations. The 2015 release Nothing Left Nothing Gained, an EP first tracked in 2013 and augmented by Erhardt-Hansen's overdubs, appeared via Bellowing Mass Records. The same configuration also recorded a thirteen-minute deconstruction of Black Sabbath's "Rat Salad" for Cvlt Nation's Paranoid tribute compilation. In 2016 the split cassette Cast in Ruin with Obsidian Sword surfaced on Hand of Death Records. Once Barr's brother Danny joined on bass and vocals, Aseethe signed with Thrill Jockey, the label also home to Barn Owl and groups such as Sumac and the Body with whom the band has shared stages. The 2017 album Hopes of Failure pared back much of the earlier noise and experimentation, resulting in more forceful and hard-hitting tracks. After Noah Koester replaced Danny Barr, Aseethe delivered their second Thrill Jockey full-length, Throes, in 2019. The limited single "Blood Is the Game" followed in 2022, and the 2024 album The Cost reflects on themes of loss and trauma.