Khanate, formed in New York in 2000 is a super-doom metal project
(Melvins, Earth, Boris) launched by the unlikely
couple of bassist James Plotkin and
guitarist Stephen O'Malley (also in Sunn O),
with O.L.D.'s hysterical vocalist Alan Dubin and
Blind Idiot God's brutal drummer Tim Wyskida.
Khanate (Southern Lord, 2002 - Daymare, 2007), recorded in may 2001,
contains only five tracks, of which four are lengthy hypnotic jams.
Pieces of Quiet (13.22) juxtaposes
Dubin's sneering shrieks and O'Malley's lugubrious feedback and riffs over the carpet of
Wyskida's slow and heavy beats.
After five minutes of the same formula, Skin Coat (9.36) plunges into
a more introverted mood.
Hell appears in Under Rotting Sky (18.18) when a massive sustained distortion of guitar and bass collides with echoes of a voice being devoured alive.
The recitation that follows is visceral as usual, but this time the
grandiloquent duet of guitar and drums has the function not to propel it
but to bury it again into the same black hole.
No Joy (11.32) seems to close the lid of the coffin, a funereal
litany that turns into a scream that fades away, the sound of decomposing
flesh, while the martial pace of the instruments evokes church bells
The screeching style of vocalist Alan Dubins, reminiscent of the young
David Yow,
highlights the four expressionistic psychodramas of
Things Viral (Southern Lord, 2003 - Daymare, 2007).
The sparse soundscape of Commuted (19:15), that abandons the trademark
distortions and drones for a series of isolated beats, enhances the
highly emotional show of the vocalist. When the guitars finally join the
drums, the mood has already been radicalized. The guitars, in fact, mostly
drop out for the last seven minutes, when the voice has died away and there
is literally nothing more to say.
Fields (19:53) operates the other way around: it takes seven minutes
for the drums to appear, while the voice has been hiding behind the thundering
guitar. For eleven minutes the voice is just the distant echo of a shriek.
Then it rises in all its ugliness and vulgarity.
A Shakespeare soliloquy couldn't be more harrowing.
Extreme guitar and bass noises flow out of Too Close Enough to Touch (11:03), perhaps to express the extreme tension inside the mind of the speaker.
As the sounds become more and more abstract, one can feel the mental collapse
of the protagonist.
By comparison, the relatively straight-forward doom-metal agony Dead (9:30) feels like a moment of relief.
This album transfers Khanate's art from the realm of music to the realm of
psychology.
Khanate's mission is not so much about reforming or revolutionizing doom
metal as about adding a new dimension to recitation, meditation and
storytelling in music.
The EP Capture & Release (Hydra Head, 2005) contains two lengthy tracks,
recorded march 2005.
for a grand total of 43 minutes, in which
O'Malley, Plotkin, Dubin and Wyskida continue to refine their artsy metal music.
The key protagonists of Capture and especially Release (the most
dynamic of the two) are 1. silence, 2. distortion and 3. Dubin's screams.
If Capture (18:13) is a relatively predictable slow-motion torture ritual,
Release (25:03),
that coalesces very slowly, like a floating nebula,
masterly captures the psychological synthesis of their music:
the agony of a damned, the hallucination of a heroin
addict and the extreme blank of a suicide bomber all combined together.
After 14 minutes, the extremely slow and painful rhythm and super-doom
atmosphere implode in a quantum vacuum. After six minutes there is one
last eruption of sound, a totally irrational explosion of the senses.
It's Cold When Birds Fall From The Sky (Archive, 2007) documents Khanate's final tour in 2005.
Live In Stockholm (aRCHIVE, 2007) documents a 2004 tour.
Wyskida and Plotkin were also members of Khlyst which released Chaos Is My Name (Hydra Head, 2006).
Clean Hands Go Foul (2009) compiles four leftovers from the sessions of
Capture & Release, including the 30-minute Every God Damn Thing.
Khanate's "vocalist" Alan Dubin formed Gnaw to indulge in his favorite
noise-psychodramas, as revealed on
This Face (Conspiracy, 2009).
Clean Hands Go Foul (Hydra Head, 2009) collects unreleased Khanate recordings from 2005-06 with vocals by Alan Dubin.
Jodis, the trio of
Khanate's James Plotkin, Isis' Aaron Turner and Tim Wyskida (ex-Khanate),
that debuted with
Secret House (Hydra Head, 2009),
represented a lighter version of Khanate.
Comeback albums are rarely welcome and
Khanate's To Be Cruel (2023)
simply repeats old cliches;
and it sins in not editing out the redundant parts, which are actually most of the
music.
The three lengthy pieces, namely Like a Poisoned Dog (19:20), It Wants to Fly (21:43) and To Be Cruel (20:10), sound like parodies of Khanate's drone metal done by a band of diligent imitators and by an annoying vocalist (Alan Dubin lost his charm).
