Colorado purveyors of doom Khemmis drive a stake through the heart on their propulsive self-titled 5th album.
Release date: June 12, 2026 | Nuclear Blast | Instagram | Bandcamp
This is how old school I am: I was playing Dungeons & Dragons in 1983, when you had to draw the map on graph paper. My favorite albums at the time were Def Leppard‘s Pyromania and Piece of Mind from Iron Maiden, and this kind of metallic mysticism fed right into my desire to be a righteous paladin fighting his way to glory through the ill-lit halls of an abandoned castle. That paladin was Sboom Samrep, named after a stuffed panda I had, and he made it to 5th level before he was unceremoniously killed in a one-off with a Dungeon Master who clearly had no idea what he was doing. It ended up being a dramatic, fucked up total party kill. I went into the bathroom and cried. Us heavy metal kids had big feelings back then, and the death of a character I’d spent months developing was a blow I wasn’t capable of taking.
Lucky for me, Khemmis is here to remind me that no true paladin actually dies— they live on in virtuous infamy, blood dripping from their Holy Avenger sword. Because, really, Dungeons & Dragons, Def Leppard, and Iron Maiden were all about the drama— the over the top, theatrical drama of villages sacked, of love lost to the hands of the enemy, the hordes of destruction wrapped up in the grey faces of orcs and ogres. Khemmis, with their mountainous doom from the foot of the Rocky Mountains, have always embraced this kind of drama, and on their fifth self-titled LP from Nuclear Blast, the band starts another chapter in its own musical Lord of the Rings.
Opener “Invocation of the Dreamer” is like rolling an eighteen to open the overly-large wooden door that holds the mystery of the soul-sucking succubi within the cavernous halls and rooms of an ancient castle. It’s an immediate blast of black metal fury that gives way to the classic Khemmis doom. What the band has always done well is show what a well-trained party they are, with Ben Hutcherson and Phil Pendergast at the head of the beast, two barbarians bearing battle axes. Their dual guitars and harmonic melodies are as powerful as they’ve ever been, and the vocals continually show growth as they have on all their albums. In a way, their fifth album is showing a band that’s leveled up.
“Corpsebloom Garden” is the ballroom that’s given way to a caved in roof, concrete gone fallow, the tendrils of death’s flowers breaking the stone, luring the party to certain death. The song plods majestically, practically screaming for fists to be thrown in the air. A dual guitar lick beckons Hutcherson’s death growls, before the band launches into another sludgy trod through the mud of the garden. The outro shows off the band’s technical prowess, and showcases some solo trade offs that go down like a warm chalice of mead.
Truth be told, the band’s not doing anything new on Khemmis, and I’m not sure if there were any expectations otherwise. It’s a formula that works, and they’re still on their never-ending adventure today. Both 2020’s EP Doomed Heavy Metal and 2021’s Deceiver got me through the meat of Covid. In fact, these two albums— coupled with my group’s online adventure of Tomb of Annihilation, and my warlock Dingo Ringo (I was also going through the entire Beatles‘ catalogue at the time, but that’s a whole other article)— could arguably be my Piece of Mind and Pyromania of the 21st century. Had you told my 13-year old self my 50-something self would still be playing D&D and listening to metal, I probably would have assumed I was either homeless or committed. Either way, I’m sure I’d have been terrified.
“Beneath the Scythe” is the album’s centerpiece, the big fight before the final bad guy. The song moves like a gelatinous cube through the moldy hallways of death’s chambers. It’s Khemmis at their doomiest. There’s a lot of seventies progressive rock wrapped in what the band is doing, like someone shot up all the members of Kansas with ketamine and gave them Orange amps. The music surges, veins throbbing through an arm raised in attack: the final blow, a critical hit, rolling twenty and doing double damage.
“Carrion King” starts off with a furious death metal explosion before collapsing into the atypical Khemmis gallop. The song has some psychedelic touches to it, and the dual vocals are powerful and soaring. Like many of the songs on the album, it’s Hutcherson’s death growls that really stand out, and break up the monotony of these 21st century funeral marches. Each song on the album seems to encapsulate a single encounter. What takes hours at the table, surrounded by potato chips, beer cans, dice, and miniatures, really takes place in minutes in terms of game-time, so it makes sense that a five minute plod through misery would represent a few dwarven fighters, a dragonborn cleric, and a gloriously blonde human paladin laying waste to a swarm of rats and their carrion king.
Album closer “Benediction Tones” is fitting end to Khemmis’s fifth campaign. The vibe of the song is very much on the nose— tones that bely the grace embodied in benediction, a blessing before sending the party out to what could be certain death. I’ve had a few characters since Sboom Samrep was waylaid back in 1983. Dingo Ringo never died. He successfully destroyed the Soulmonger with his fellow party members, and spent a life fine-tuning his Eldritch Blasts into something of global infamy. Even my dwarven barbarian Umberto Halfordian IV lived to retire in his pub with a skeletal cat and the memories of blood-filled rages. Once again, Khemmis have raised their guitars and drumsticks above in unholy fury, a benediction for us all before we march towards an uncertain end. All hail the sounds of abominable doom and sludge. A total party kill, indeed.
