In the Sign of End Times by Flowering Shrubs

 What if the best way to convey the solitary mental agony of black metal wasn’t actually through metal sounds at all? With their new record In the Sign of End Times, Flowering Shrubs puts an inventive spin on the solo black metal formula, splitting their record into two parts that represent a descent into mental hell. For its first half, the album sits you down with the singer and their singular acoustic guitar as they struggle to strum out any coherent composition, screaming and growling as they struggle to find sounds to match the torture going on inside their head. As the album sharply enters the second half, an indescribable succession of tape loops and other low, unorganized digital noise underpin an even more abstract set of tortured vocalizations, pushing past the limits of pain that typically appear in this already anguished genre. Collapsing inward, relinquishing hope to the rippling sensation of grief as it moves across the body, the music drops us off in a dangerous silence, watching and waiting for us to scream along with it.