A crack in the firmament, a rustling in the pines. The forest’s equilibrium is shattered beneath the hooves of antiquity. Proscribed by the egoists, all the old sacraments have been performed—a complete transference of potency. The air hisses with mercury and magnetism. Fire swallows the land. In stillness they wait as the sky bleeds white, players in a proto-mythic drama with outcome unknown. (Not the band, though—that would be cheesy.)

This information is as useful or useless as anyone chooses. All else—the sound, the color, the shape of things, the light and shade of narrative and molecular dispensation—is left to the atmosphere. It’s here and then it’s gone. It’s always there. Or maybe it was never there, not ever. It’s an imagined memory, the ultimate false dawn. A psychic eclipse that blinds the mind’s eye. How’s that for high melodrama, for existential cryptography? Sometimes, vagueness and vagaries have to suffice.

For those who prefer terra firma, though? Call it ambient post-doom. Call it alchemic psych-rock, only without all those annoying freeform guitar freakouts. Call it “pure spirits by ritual dismemberment.” Either way, Black Math Horseman is Sera Timms (bass/vocals), Ian Barry (guitar) Bryan Tulao (guitar) and Sasha Popovic (drums). They are from Los Angeles. Their debut album, Wyllt, was recorded and produced by desert guru Scott Reeder (Kyuss, Unida). The rest is a discovery about to be made.