Baltimore, Maryland’s Psychedelic Galaxy Rock duo Darsombra announces their long-awaited new album, the monstrous 2xLP “Dumesday Book,” confirming the record for release in August and issuing the cover art, tracklist, Pre-Orders, and official music video for the single titled “Gibbet Lore.”
“Dumesday Book” is a whopping seventy-five minutes of sonic revelry, to delight and confound both seasoned Darsombra listeners and unwitting new ears alike. Originally conceived as a surreal take on a pop album to contrast with their ominously prescient monolithic 2019 release, “Transmission,” “Dumesday Book” is a ten-song survey of sentiment and human experience in the pandemic, from initial lockdown to vaccinated re-emergence and beyond – which, in the Darsombra microcosm, means from cancelled tours to returning to the road.
Fittingly, Darsombra wrote the framework for the album during the quarantine of Spring 2020, and then tirelessly refined it over the next three years. At times bizarre, intense, mollifying, sardonic, irreverent, overwhelming, and hopeful, “Dumesday Book” takes its name from the 11th century census book which served as the oldest public record in the English language, Domesday Book – so named because its decisions were unalterable, its sentence was law, and its survey of human activity so complete. The album’s sound follows the theme of survey as well, with glam-prog frivolity giving way to heavy psych doomscapes laden with music concrète field recordings. A bong rip takes you from a disconcerting chord progression to a goblin doggerel dirge, all to resolve into a space-shimmery synthcapade laced with heart-fueled guitar riffs worthy of any Krautrockian nod for a non-Teutonic band. Of course, there are serious moments of rock woven throughout this hour-plus-long musical journey, but to typify “Dumesday Book” as simply Drone, or Metal, or Psych – or even Prog – is missing the point.
“Dumesday Book” was written by Darsombra’s Brian Daniloski and Ann Everton, recorded and mixed by Daniloski at their home studio, Whale Manor, and mastered by Jon Smulyan. Everton handled the cover art, photography, and videography for the album. The record includes a twelve-page booklet illustrating each track, and all physical formats also include a sticker exclusive to the work and a Bandcamp download code with access to additional bonus material. Besides the standard 2xLP and CD versions, the album will also be available in a number of limited edition bundle packages, which include a handmade bismuth crystal and/or limited edition t-shirt.
Watch the official music video for the track “Gibbet Lore” through the YouTube player below:
Pre-Order the album on Bandcamp: https://darsombra.bandcamp.com/album/dumesday-book
Watch for multiple videos and additional updates on the album to post over the weeks ahead.
Tracklist:
01. Shelter In Place
02. Call The Doctor (Pandemonium Mix)
03. Plague Times
04. Everything Is Canceled
05. Nightgarden (Profundo Mix)
06. Azimuth
07. Still Canceled
08. A New Dell
09. Gibbet Lore
10. Mellow Knees
Darsombra is a Cinematic Conceptual Rock band uniting composer Brian Daniloski on guitar, bass, vocals, and sound design, and filmmaker Ann Everton on synth, vocals, percussion, and projections. The band is internationally known for walking the line between Glam-Prog-Psych-Stoner Metal and site-specific installation performance art. Live, their carefully crafted songs and videos create a hallucinogenic synesthesia for the audience, as Everton and Daniloski build a temporary reality from sound, sight, and movement.
Prolifically touring for well over a decade, Darsombra has performed in forty-eight states and twenty countries throughout North America, Asia, and Europe, at music venues, festivals, DIY spaces, house shows, galleries, city ruins, dive bars, cultural centers, record stores, coffee shops, and parks, not to mention their legendary pop-up generator shows at national monuments and forests, or just by the side of the road. No matter where they perform, the most common responses a Darsombra show elicits are: “I didn’t know what to expect, but that was awesome,” “I’ve never seen anything like that before,” and “It was like an acid trip, but without the acid.“
Following releases on At A Loss Recordings, Public Guilt, Exile On Mainstream, Translation Loss, Dogma Artistic Guerrilla, and Noise Bombing, Darsombra self-released their last full-length album, “Transmission,” in 2019. Since then, they’ve also self-released a cassette single, 2022’s “Call The Doctor/Nightgarden” EP, while preparing for the release of their massive “Dumesday Book” double-LP.
