Author & Punisher

Tristan Shone constructs an assortment of custom machines to generate the severe, apocalyptic sound he releases as Author & Punisher. Although often filed under industrial or doom metal, the music draws just as strongly from dubstep, dub techno, and the shadowy drum'n'bass sound of No U-Turn, yielding warped, sustained bass tones alongside pulverizing percussion. Since launching the project in 2004, Shone has built a devoted audience through nonstop touring, a steady stream of recordings, and YouTube footage documenting both studio work and live shows. The catalog extends from the echo-laden experiments of 2012's Ursus Americanus to releases that introduce unexpected melody without softening their dark, overpowering character, such as 2018's Beastland and 2022's Krüller.

Before settling in San Diego, California to pursue art and sculpture, Shone worked as a mechanical engineer in Boston. There he began fabricating his own instruments and controllers, among them the Drone Machines and Dub Machines, from raw materials and open-source circuitry. The earliest self-released efforts, 2005's The Painted Army and 2007's Warcry, featured more guitars and aligned more closely with radio-friendly alternative metal than later material, yet remained markedly experimental. Once Drone Machines surfaced in 2010, carrying a stronger Godflesh influence, Author & Punisher drew wider interest from noise, industrial, and metal audiences.

Seventh Rule Recordings issued Ursus Americanus in 2012 and Women & Children the following year. Breakcore producers Bong-Ra and Gore Tech joined forces for a remix EP that appeared on Enduser's Sonicterror Recordings in 2014. The next year, Pantera's Phil Anselmo produced Melk En Honing for release on his Housecore Records label. After the self-issued 2017 EP Pressure Mine, Shone made his Relapse debut with the full-length Beastland in 2018. The single "A Crude Sanctioning" followed in 2019, and Author & Punisher supported Tool on tour in early 2020 before issuing Live 2020 B.C. A cover of Perturbator's "Excess" arrived in 2021. Author & Punisher returned to Relapse with the 2022 album Krüller, which included appearances by Danny Carey and Justin Chancellor of Tool, a collaboration with Vytear, and a version of Portishead's "Glorybox."