Ehnahre’s avant take on extreme metal has been a source of intrigue and amazement here at the IU/FREE! camp since their founding members initial defection from Kayo Dot. For the uninitiated, the band melds a blur of doom, death, and black metal with avant and 20th century components and theory to create some of the most extreme, chaotic, atonal and relentlessly unpredictable compositions in the metal or experimental world.  This is so far beyond any ‘thinking-man’s metal’ it holds its own mind-altering level of complexity and drastically creative application of technical and theoretical musicianship.

Ithaca Underground aimed to bring the band out back last spring and have been holding our collective breath since. May 7th we'll take a sigh of relief and huge huff of extreme composition at its finest. Bubba Crumrine gets the latest on the band's activities, their latest release on Crucial Blast, and in-process material.

Ryan: Doing well!  Trying to stay out of jail and the hospital as best we can.

Ryan: We did a tour in the fall, and it was a little rough.  Pretty poor turnouts, no money, the usual story.  We booked it with this band Wolvserpent, from Boise, and we had a great time with them, but two relatively unknown touring bands made for some pretty dismal financial prospects.  And not like we give a shit about making money, but we at least need to come close to breaking even.  We're not 20 anymore, we're too old to run around touring with $1.86 in our pockets, stealing gas and food.  That shit was awesome 10 years ago, but we unfortunately can't really afford to do it anymore.   So for now, in the states, we're going to stick a little closer to home, and just play the northeast, until we get a little more exposure and can procure a minimal guarantee.  We are however, planning a return trip to Europe as soon as possible.  They seem to be more receptive to what we're doing over there, and treat touring bands much, much better.

Ryan: "Taming the Cannibals" is our most recent release, it came out on Crucial Blast in November.  It's a little bit of a departure from our first two records, as we went from 3 guitarists down to 1.  But I think we actually prefer it this way, as the dissonant harmony is much more audible without 3 guitars muddying things up.  It's a concept record of sorts, as we always do, centered around dual themes- self destruction/self loathing, and the pitfalls of modern life, or our disassociation from our more primal selves.   We culled our text material from Robinson Jeffers, Georg Trakl, Walt Whitman, and F.R. Higgins.