Band info
Band: Escaping Aghartha
Album: Lurkers of Languid Waters
Released: May 22nd, 2026
Genre: Atmospheric blackened doom metal
Location: Hillsborough, North Carolina, US
Review
ABMN here, back with an album we are sure will land in many people’s top tier 10 lists. make sure you have your diving equipment, because we’re going for a deep immersion with ESCAPING AGHARTHA’s latest album, ‘Lurkers of Languid Waters’. This project, which officially started with a brief 4 songs EP back in 2016, and lead by Avery Dart since then, has become a powerhouse not only musically and artistically, but also as a conceptual force and a well needed breakthrough in a musical landscape, between black metal and doom metal, that tends to get completely stagnant and devoid of originality. ESCAPING AGHARTHA is one of those projects that only happen once, where seeing the “Nature” lyrical topic is not just and adornment or a hint to a mention to some typical forest local to the artist. The project bears an objective in mind that got our attention straight away: an environmental educative message, delving into conservation of habitats and their species and the ravaging effect of human (capitalist and colonial) exploitation on the land. And not only on the land… We picture here the Sargasso Sea, in the Atlantic Ocean. This will be a concurrent location in the album, painted in a canvas by a combination of black, doom metal and rich atmospheres where synthesizers have a very particular spotlight. With an epic but grim drive, and pairing a bit with the Germans Ahab when the record kicks more to a funeral doom side on heavier and slower points, we explore the fascinating life cycles of some species of Anguillidae Eels, and the deterioration they face, endangering their environments and the continuity of their existence. From start to finish, most notorious threats the eels go through and details about their biology are masterfully sing about in this mature and complex work of a rewarding hour long of trance-like listen.
It starts with a charged spite to the direct human action with Eel Black Market, narrating from the eels figured point of view in the struggle to survive furtive (and legal) mass attempts of fishing them to be sold as products… an image not unfamiliar with the full picture of animal exploitation and consumption we have historically done to unbearable, unsustainable fatal consequences. While the focus is on the eels of the Sargasso Sea and the currents that made their home alongside the Sargassum seaweed, the album will keep visiting scenarios and circumstances that are key problems anywhere else for all species, such as pollution or active, direct environmental destruction and aimless exploitation, hunting and fishing to satisfy a demand that will never go down through capitalism’s lenses, for the sole service of human first hand, surface convenience. With the company of several skillful and talented session artists invited to have their place in the collage of vivid lights and shadows from the oceanic depths to the crystalline riverbeds, the ambient made possible by synth keys, the driving vocal work of Avery (clean and harsh) and guest Marco Pansa, who also add lyrics, the brilliant work on guitars, a vibrant songwriting worth reading while listening, Thijs Bults on bass and the drums by Gregorio Ferrarese, no component in this album is anything out of place, with visual work as the cherry on top. This album’s benefits were also donated to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s Anguillid Eel Specialist Group (AESG) on the first month since release, which we encourage you all dear readers to check about and even help in their cause to fight for the conservation of these species of eels.