Newaxeyes: Tyler Coray, William Hayes, Bret Gardin, Jordan Rundle
Newaxeyes: Tyler Coray, William Hayes, Bret Gardin, Jordan Rundle ÚnaBlue

Seattle quartet Newaxeyes will release their debut album, Black Fax, on March 16, 2018, via Important Records. Produced by Master Musicians of Bukkake's Randall Dunn (Earth, Sunn O))), Wolves in the Throne Room, etc.), Black Fax has been gestating for a long time, and it's going to blow open some minds.

Back in May, I described it in The Stranger as thus: "An 11-track confluence of brooding rock majesty and chthonic, abstract-electronic expressionism, [Black Fax] refines the local quartet’s tumultuous improvisational live performances into gathering-storm soundscapes and meditative Eno-esque art songs, a free-floating uneasiness coursing through the record’s DNA." You can check out the LP's first single, "False Flag," below. Its grandiose bleakness sounds like a fanfare for World War III, as samples of conspiracy theories chatter beneath the massive, splenetic drums, arpeggiating synths, and guitars that brood with a Twin Peaks-ian melancholy. (Newaxeyes perform Friday, December 1 at an undisclosed location. Rudimentary internet-sleuthing skills should lead you to the destination.)