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Music

Dendritic Arbor's Chaotic Fusion of Black Metal and Grindcore Will Make Your Head Spin

Stream the Pittsburgh volume dealers' caustic new album, 'Romantic Love.'

Photos by Gregory Neiser

Pittsburgh's Dendritic Arbor has been haunting the underground for the past three years, quietly releasing mind-boggling, bastardized black metal in small runs on small labels, biding their time and honing their skills. That hard work has paid off: the band's latest release, the sardonically-titled Romantic Love, is out very soon (5/5, to be exact) via rising Baltimore label Grimoire Records, and promises to be a game-changer.

Simply put, Dendritic Arbor's black metal/noise/grind fusion is like nothing you've ever heard before. The closest sonic equivalent I can parse is Knelt Rote, but I daresay Dendritic Arbor's more metallic approach slices even deeper. Additional noise work from Fuck The Facts' Topon Das augments the chaos, and the final result sounds like a scene torn from the bowels of Bethlem—a nightmarish din of clanging chains, disorienting noise, and the howls of the damned.

Get right with your god, then listen to Romantic Love in its entirety right here:

'Romantic Love' is out May 5 via Grimoire Records.

Kim Kelly is grinding it out on Twitter - @grimkim