Words – @killer.solo.music
The Umbersound mastermind dives into analog recording, cosmic horror, songwriting as therapy and why sometimes the mistakes are exactly what a record needs.
Modern metal has developed an unhealthy obsession with perfection.
Every drum hit snapped to a grid. Every guitar edited until it resembles a computer simulation of a guitar. Every vocal polished into submission. Somewhere along the way, we started confusing perfection with personality.
Joe D’Angelo never got that memo.
The driving force behind New York doom/sludge project Umbersound has taken the exact opposite approach on Tracks From The Slither, embracing reel-to-reel tape, minimal editing and performances that breathe, creak and occasionally threaten to fall apart. That’s exactly the point.
“I just wanted to keep it more analog than completely digital,” Joe explains. “I didn’t do a whole lot of editing… I just wanted to sound as raw as I could possibly get it without being just noise.”
That philosophy bleeds through every second of Tracks From The Slither. It’s an album that doesn’t feel manufactured—it feels discovered. Like somebody unearthed an old tape from a forgotten basement, wiped the dust off it and hit play without knowing what horrors were waiting inside.
For Joe, the tape machine wasn’t just a recording device. It became another instrument in the room.
“I was trying to get that as much as possible,” he says while describing the saturated warmth only tape can produce. “I think I got close.”
He absolutely did.
Listening to the album feels less like hearing a modern doom record and more like stumbling across a cursed broadcast from another era. The saturation becomes part of the atmosphere. The imperfections become texture rather than flaws.
In an era where artificial intelligence can generate riffs and every DAW offers limitless editing, Umbersound almost feels rebellious.
Joe believes limitations force creativity.
“I wish I could afford an actual two-inch reel… but I don’t have an arm and a leg to cut off to pay for one.”
There’s something wonderfully honest about that sentence.
No million-dollar studio. No marketing buzzwords. Just a musician chasing a sound because it feels right.
And feeling is the word that kept resurfacing throughout our conversation.
Joe writes constantly. An album every year has become routine, but not because he’s chasing deadlines.
“I’m always writing,” he says. “I’m always thinking about something that’s going to turn into a riff.”
The lyrics, however, arrive differently.
“To me, the lyrics are the hardest thing to write.”
Rather than forcing ideas, he lets them surface naturally, often discovering what the songs are really about only after they’ve been written.
“It’s pretty much like my therapy,” he says. “I set it and then I forget about it. I’m able to move on.”
That emotional honesty runs throughout Tracks From The Slither.
Whether exploring anxiety, repetition, manipulation or existential dread, the songs never feel like fictional horror stories. Even when Joe dives into H.P. Lovecraft territory on My God, It’s Coming From The Ocean, the real horror isn’t the monster—it’s blind devotion.
“I wanted to put myself in the mind of a priest that serves Cthulhu… he never falters in anything, but he winds up going mad anyway.”
It’s classic cosmic horror, but it also mirrors the album’s broader themes of identity, control and psychological collapse.
Even the title track grew from observing the world around him.
Without turning the conversation into a political debate, Joe explained that living in Staten Island inspired reflections on charismatic leadership, blind loyalty and the dangerous search for father figures. Those observations eventually evolved into the opening track.
It’s another reminder that doom metal often says far more about the real world than people give it credit for.
One of my favourite moments came when we drifted into talking about modern guitar rigs.
Anyone who’s followed this site knows where I stand.
I love technology. I love digital recording.
But there is still something magical about standing in front of a real guitar cabinet while the air physically moves around you.
Joe agrees.
He’s not anti-digital. He understands why touring musicians rely on Kempers and profiling amps.
But he also believes something disappears when everything comes through the PA.
“I know bands that went to that sound… but changed back because there’s just something off.”
Exactly.
Sometimes the imperfections are the thing we’re actually listening for.
Perhaps that’s the biggest takeaway from Tracks From The Slither.
It’s not trying to impress anyone with technical perfection.
It’s trying to make you feel something.
Mission accomplished.
If you’re looking for pristine production, this probably isn’t your record.
If you’re looking for an album that feels alive, dangerous and completely unapologetic, Umbersound have delivered one of doom metal’s most compelling releases of the year.
Go and listen to it properly.
Headphones on.
Lights off.
Leave your perfectionism at the door.
This is the gospel.
I bite crowd surfers.
Killer.
