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What they are saying about the new album...

Top Albums ov 2021: "My favorite genre of Hard to Categorize. A little death rock, a little black metal, a little krautrock, and unexpected turns all throughout." — Ben Serna-Gray, Toilet ov Hell

"This duo of multi-instrumentalists Weirding Batweilder and Jean Farraige variously characterize their music as Blackened Death Rock or Arthouse Metal. I’ve slept on them way too long, but no longer." — No Clean Singing

"Experimental metal duo Bornwithhair have been twisting the genre’s blueprints ever since their debut dropped back in early 2020, but it is their fourth release When The Witches Fall that most resolutely captures their dense and intoxicating avant-garde approach." — Astral Noize

"Very few names are able to execute anything like this on this kind of level with such consistency." — Head-Banger Reviews

"The story that unfolds within 'When Witches Fall' is grotesque, disgusting and multi-layered... dark aspects of the human psyche, raw manifestations of experience... dark alleys of heresies, government experiments, and general zeroing of the human body." — Rocking

"The very creepy duo calls their music ‘lo-fi arthouse metal’ or ‘blackened death rock’ and although it may seem just like band's attempt to write pathos words in a press release to get media attention, turning on When The Witches Fall makes you realize these are very accurate and honest tags. The last time I was so surprised by seemingly unmixable styles was when I first heard an anonymous psychedelic project about black magic and "death’s head", if you know what I'm talking about. I strongly advise you to check out Bornwithhair, I personally can't stop listening to it." — Neformat

"Do you like weird stuff? I like weird stuff, and so does this multi instrumentalist duo called Bornwithhair. The elements in this avant-garde cocktail comes from all over the places. The core is some kind of blackened death rock, spiced up with slow droning buzz, hypnotizing psychedelic space soundscapes and airy post rock. Both harsh and clean vocals. Everything shrouded in an extremely eerie mystery." — Doomed and Gloomed

"A musical style that takes avant-garde black metal and death rock and mixes them together to create a sound of their own." — A Different Shade of Black Metal

And what they've said about our sound...

"Bornwithhair have a sound that’s all to their own... Eerie, trippy, complex – all intriguing aspects of a sound that’s better off being heard than simply described. For those seeking something off-kiler and interesting." — Dead Rhetoric

"The musicianship and composition is, without doubt, extremely well orchestrated. The depth and layers contain uncountable treasures, and atmospherically, it is as deep and explosive a plummet into the human psyche as one can hope for." — Everything is Noise

"Ever been to Rochester and experienced the local artery-clogging pile of meat, fries and cheese known as the Garbage Plate? This band's recipe is cut from the same cloth... It's unhealthy and willpower-crushing, and should probably be avoided, but can't be ignored." — Decibel

"An apocalyptic feel." — Heavy Music Headquarters

"This music makes me want to eat grubs in the forest while covered in mud." — Viking's Choice

WE ARE BORNWITHHAIR.

Find our music on Bandcamp.

MUSIC

MOST RECENT ALBUM

When the Witches Fall

Releases: October 2021 on Trepanation Recordings

When the Witches Fall

The fourth full-length album from Bornwithhair will be released on 08 October 2021.

Bornwithhair’s peculiar brand of Arthouse Metal is at once lo-fi, sprawling, clamorous, and unnerving. And on their new album, the duo of multi instrumentalists Weirding Batweilder and Jean Farraige has gone all-in on their obsessive and delirious quest to develop a fresh form of Blackened Death Rock.

"The first song from their new album is strange and unpredictable. The overture sounds like a space odyssey, or perhaps the parting of an interdimensional veil, and what comes through is a sorcerous amalgam of pungent beats and swirling, apparitional sounds, with a collage of wailing and savagely growling and howling voices. The music seems to dance and levitate, and it becomes disorienting and delightful, but also very creepy. Both the singing and the guitars seem to quiver and squirm within this sonic hallucination, and the song as a whole manages to be both bizarre and intoxicating." — No Clean Singing

“We were looking down a deep and dark abyss and trying to create literature out of it,” said Weirding. “At the same time, we wanted to make an electric guitar album. And we wanted to take a new approach to a guitar-based album. We wanted to record the guitars to make it sound like the speakers on your stereo were crumbling. We wanted a desiccated sound, like the shell of a freshly emerged locust.”

"There are very few instances where the term 'avant-garde' is actually warranted... it’s with When the Witches Fall that Bornwithhair more than meets that burden of expectation. It’s within the seven tracks that are contained within this record, we’re treated to a truly mysterious display that brings in some of the most ethereal elements from both metal and rock to make a performance that’s as dense as it is expansive in its sonic exploration with this band rarely being content to stay in the same place for long. Everything is brought together on an expert level such that it’s damn near intoxicating to immerse yourself in it time after time with every decision that Bornwithhair makes here a compelling element that not only contributes to the overall glory of When the Witches Fall, but it perpetuates just exactly how much the record itself is away from many of its contemporaries." — Head-Banger Reviews

"Like an untrained AI trying to recreate metal and somehow stumbling across a captivating new formula that hadn’t occurred to anyone before." — Astral Noize

ABOUT THE BAND

Bornwithhair is the duo of multi instrumentalists Jean Farraige and Weirding Batweilder. Working in the context of heavy and dark music, the pair draw on avant-garde compositional techniques, improvisation, and lo-fi home recording methods to explore themes of historical and psychological interest. GoblinGuard b/w Werewolf and Phantom, and the subsequent Abramelinic Delusions b/w The Possessorist, were both released in 2019 and exhibited the band's blending of black metal, industrial noise, and experimental songwriting.

Their debut, Radical Moon (2020) hinted at a conceptual approach that would be more fully realized on their sophomore release, 2020's Smoleńska. Envisioned as a musical exploration of the life a young woman caught in the midst of the Nazi occupation of Warsaw, the album showed the range of the duo's capabilities with passages of blackened death metal and trad metal riffs shifting into spoken word experiments and electro-acoustic freak folk and free improvisation before veering into sheets of noise.

In 2021, Bornwithhair released Someplace to Haunt. Balancing more accessible song forms against a landscape of obfuscated lyrics, the album set the stage for the band's fourth release, When the Witches Fall (2021). Noisy and dense, the album, released on Trepanation Recordings, took as subject matter the interior lives of cult members, serial killers, and subjects of government experiments and laid the foundation for what the group called Arthouse Metal.

PAST ALBUMS

Someplace to Haunt

Released: February 2021

Someplace to Haunt

The third full-length album from Bornwithhair was released on 05 February 2021.

"Definitely an album that revels in the avant-garde, Bornwithhair have a sound that’s all to their own... Eerie, trippy, complex – all intriguing aspects of a sound that’s better off being heard than simply described. For those seeking something off-kiler and interesting." — Dead Rhetoric

"Someplace to Haunt is, dare I say, this duo's most enjoyable and most cohesive work yet... this is a album meant for listening to in full album form. It is an experience entirely worth your while. I promise... In short? I mean, goddamn. Someplace to Haunt is simply a killer album, a potent encapsulation of Bornwithhair's greatest strengths. I feel like their brief-yet-prolific career has been pointing in the direction of an album like this, and they delivered in spades." — Sleeping Village

"This is a weird one; coming from me, I suppose that says something! Imagine one of the more inscrutable Anacortes/Olympia indie-rock bands (D+, Old Time Relijun) got into Furze, the supremely deranged one-man black metal project, and that sorta paints a burned portrait of Bornwithhair. This music makes me want to eat grubs in the forest while covered in mud." — Viking's Choice

"Ever been to Rochester and experienced the local artery-clogging pile of meat, fries and cheese known as the Garbage Plate? This band's recipe is cut from the same cloth, as they drop noise rock, death-doom, indie rock, psychedelia and avant-art rock into one ungodly lo-fi Melvins-inspired mess. It's unhealthy and willpower-crushing, and should probably be avoided, but can't be ignored." — Decibel (Issue 200)

"Following on from their atmospheric debut Radical Moon and its more abrasive successor Smoleńska, 2021’s Someplace To Haunt is arguably their most cohesive, and impressive, release yet... They’ve channelled their influences into creating a whole new beast and with Someplace To Haunt, Bornwithhair have managed to conjure a unique, fresh sound that is truly their own. Without doubt, this will be one of the most intriguing albums you’ll hear this year." — Astral Noize

Smoleńska

Released: September 2020

Smoleńska

"Emotions and movements anarchically crash together within each track. The band utilise just about every resource in distortion and synth, and compact their sounds into dense and ever-changing layers. At over an hour, the album’s narrative is epic. It contains all the progressive hallmarks of the bombastic colliding with the peaceful... The musicianship and composition is, without doubt, extremely well orchestrated. The depth and layers contain uncountable treasures, and atmospherically, it is as deep and explosive a plummet into the human psyche as one can hope for." — Everything is Noise

"Smoleńska is a staggering piece of creative lunacy... If Bornwithhair can focus this almost ridiculous level of creativity, so their work has more clarity, then they could be on to something really special. I get the feeling that this album is a stepping stone towards something really special, a learning experience that they needed to go through before they can reach their potential. This may be the band learning their craft before releasing an album that will be seen as a classic. Personally I can’t wait to hear what they do next." — Musipedia of Metal

"This wonderful creation is Bornwithhair’s second release this year. A metal album born out of a DIY aesthetic it’s been much played here over the past month or so… What keeps me coming back is how unhinged it is, like a black metal Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter in some ways, totally out there, never predictable, always engaging." — Vogon Laundromat / I Heart Noise

"It is a fucking treat." — Fistful of Doom

"Smoleńska is avant-garde music that is very different from the norm... an apocalyptic feel." — Heavy Music Headquarters

Radical Moon

Released: February 2020

Radical Moon

"Radical Moon is one of the most unsettling (and compelling) avant garde releases heard in some time... This is a record that requires (and deserves) repeat listens. It’s Big Black, but if Steve Albini had been locked in the Unabomber’s cabin." — Astral Noize

"This is a record where free-form guitar leads dance over colossal riffs and primitive, almost minimalist percussion. Vocals range from growls to dramatic spoken word to theatric shrieks, all adding up to create a dizzying, bewildering whole." — The Sound Not The Word

"This is the very definition of avant garde... Elements of noise, extreme metal, industrial with free form guitars, spoken word, growls and other fractured sounds... Well worth exploring." — Uncle Les Talks Music

"It’s perplexing and something that really will divide opinion but you have to admire Bornwithhair’s risk-taking." — Games, Brrraaains & A Head-Banging Life

"Throughout the record vocals are growled, spoken, sung, and shrieked over a variety of clashing noises reminiscent of Throbbing Gristle with more of a focus on metal... The production on the album is 100% DIY and to their credit sounds fantastic." — Alternative Control

COMPS

'Pawiak' on Hope in the Face of Fear HvH (April 2020)

Pawiak

The Forest at Night published a review of highlights from the Hope in the Face of Fear compilation. And they had nice things to say about Bornwithhair's contribution: "Everything I love in avant-garde, in one philosophy — and praxis — heavy track... Do I know what I'm hearing? Absolutely not. Do I love it? You're goddamn right I do." — The Forest At Night