ENCASEMENT have premiered "Exodus" through Decibel Magazine, the latest single from the project's self-titled debut, arriving September 4 via a joint release between Hypaethral Records and I, Voidhanger Records.
ENCASEMENT is the solo work of James Thompson, started in 2024 as a creative exercise that turned into something considerably more personal. The turning point was the opening of this very song — and it came to him outdoors, at night, nowhere near a guitar.
"The intro to this track was the first piece of music written for the album," Thompson said. "I was going for a lot of walks through my local park at night at the time, and the opening riff came into my head fully formed a solid 20-minute walk from home. I rushed home while repeating it over and over in my head to make sure I could get it down before forgetting it. I initially failed and put together a version I was completely unsatisfied with, before it eventually popped back to me in a way I was able to translate properly onto the guitar. That moment set the rest of the album's writing process in motion. I'm thankful it played out this way."
That passage also revealed an unexpected link to a set of poems Thompson had written years earlier. The lyrics to "Exodus" are a reworked version of one of them, and he admits he was hesitant to finish the track at all.
"'Exodus' is about fruitlessly searching for a way out of grief without accepting it," he explained. "Less directly, it's about how the seeds of unhealthy attachment and coping mechanisms are often planted in youth."
What followed was fast and instinctive — songs arriving in bursts and assembling into a record rooted in grief, reflection and release. Decibel called the tense, relentless seven-minute track one that "finds Thompson tempering his harsh, atonal exhortations with proggy explorations."
Musically ENCASEMENT is anchored in black metal but reaches well past it, pulling in death metal and more progressive and experimental threads. Dense, angular and mournful, it draws on the intensity of LITURGY, DEAFHEAVEN, THANTIFAXATH and GORGUTS, while the later stages of writing turned toward the orchestral drama of Shostakovich, Prokofiev and Ravel.
It was made almost entirely on instinct rather than formal production knowledge, which is audible by design: raw performances, unconventional production choices and compositions pushed to the edge of Thompson's own technical limits. He recorded, mixed and mastered the whole thing himself.
The debut comes out on LP through Hypaethral Records, limited to 100 copies on blood red vinyl, and on CD through I, Voidhanger Records in a 200-copy six-panel digipack.
"Encasement" track listing: 1. Inertia / 2. Exodus / 3. Apparitions / 4. The Pillory / 5. Absolution / 6. Fragmentation
Stream "Exodus": decibelmagazine.com