Hailing from St. Louis, Missouri, KODIAC are back, and are about to release their first slab of doom-soaked post-metal in almost four years. This week’s ONE TO WATCH shines its dimly lit torch on their latest single Split Routine and let me tell you, it’s a wretched and woeful lament, a harrowing voyage through heavy sullen riffs and doom-laden drums. Incorporating many heavy styles of music, Split Routine has its deathly cold fingers stuck in many genres, ranging from doom to death, sludge to post-metal. It absorbs all the pain found in each of them, and harnesses all that grief and hurt to create this deeply powerful and agonizing slab of music.
The intro on Split Routine is calm, restrained and unassuming, with gentle chords plucked and carried through slow paced percussions. However, when satan’s very own throat cries and weeps, the ground shakes and you find yourself falling helplessly into a six-foot sinkhole. The weight of the track is immense, pounding on your chest as each riff and bass chord plods and chugs, rattling your ribcage without clemency. The atmosphere is bleak, there’s no denying that, but once you’ve been consumed by this, you find solace within it, and an empathy for the macabre. The funereal pace of it all devours you and has you craving more of its darkened charms. This track reminds me so much of Mourning Beloveth’s behemoth of a track, Godether, so for me kodiac have hit every nail of the coffin on the head with Split Routine. I genuinely cannot wait to hear more from these guys, and here’s hoping we won’t be waiting another four years! Set your reminders for the single release date of 21-10-2022.