Debut EP by the Haarlem-based quintet A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers — a disturbing and consoling collision of sludge, post and doom metal, free jazz, and spiritual music.

Sounds like: OM, Sumac, Swans, Miles Davis, Pandit Pran Nath

Whilst most drone-metal outfits focus on atmosphere through ambient composition, A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers use traditional doom/sludge metal as a starting point and explore its intersections with free jazz, raga, noise, and classical minimalism. Coming from diverse backgrounds, the quintet weaves these styles into a cohesive narrative that confronts the despair, anger, and anxiety of our contemporary geopolitical climate — before searching for resolution within the individual.

Opener The Massacre of Flour opens with a ferocious statement against the ongoing Palestinian genocide. I Fuck People follows as a freejazz-avant metal thunderstorm in support of marginalised queer communities across the globe. The EP closes with the title track Towers of Silence — an Om-like, spiritual wall of sound and a search for meaning and hope in the face of human finality.

The name 'A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers' references multiple artworks, including the Van der Graaf Generator song of the same name and Robert Eggers' 2019 film The Lighthouse. Lyrically, their songs deal with death, personal struggle, religion, and political philosophy — desperate shrieks, earsplitting cymbals, a noisy guitar palette, and thumbing repetitive bass patterns creating a dialectical counterpoint to contemporary pop culture. The punk rock of a failed generation, drowning in anger and filth, yet capable of small moments of undeniable beauty and fragility.

Tracklist

1. The Massacre of Flour
2. I Fuck People
3. Towers of Silence