Next month The End Records will release the debut album from Bereft, the supergroup featuring members of Intronaut, Graviton, The Faceless and Abysmal Dawn.The group's debut album, Liechenhaus, will be released on April 24th and is self-described as "dark, depressing doom".
The band is comprised of Sacha Dunable of Intronaut and Graviton, Derek Donley of National Sunday Law and Graviton, Charles Elliott of Abysmal Dawn and ex-The Faceless vocalist Derek Rydquist.
The album revolves around two themes: the waiting mortuary and Sky Burial. Waiting mortuary is a mortuary building designed by early cultures, in a time where the certainty of death was debatable, specifically for the purpose of confirming that deceased persons are truly deceased. To alleviate the fear of burying someone alive, the deceased were housed temporarily to look out for signs of life. Most popular in 19th Century Germany, they were ornate buildings with large bell towers to alert attendants of movement. Occasionally it has erroneously been thought this is where the phrase "Saved by the Bell" was born, as a living soul was saved from burial â€" it actually originates in the sport of boxing.
Sky Burial, or ritual dissection, is a funerary practice in Tibet, wherein a human corpse was incised in certain locations and placed on a mountaintop, exposing it to the elements (mahabhuta) and animals â€" especially to predatory birds. The locations of these "burials" are understood as charnel grounds. As many Tibetans are Buddhists, in which the idea of rebirth is adhered to, the body is seen as an empty vessel upon death. Sky Burial is in the simplest understanding, the easiest way to dispose of a body post mortem.
