Cormorant is an American

progressive metal Progressive metal (often shortened to prog metal) is a broad fusion music genre melding heavy metal music, heavy metal and progressive rock, combining the loud "aggression" and amplified electric guitar, guitar-driven sound of the former with t ...

band from

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

, formed in 2007. The group consists of

bassist A bassist (also known as a bass player or bass guitarist) is a musician who plays a bass instrument such as a double bass (upright bass, contrabass, wood bass), bass guitar (electric bass, acoustic bass), keyboard bass (synth bass) or a low br ...

and

vocalist Singing is the art of creating music with the voice. It is the oldest form of musical expression, and the human voice can be considered the first musical instrument. The definition of singing varies across sources. Some sources define singi ...

Marcus Luscombe,

guitarists A guitarist (or a guitar player) is a person who plays the guitar. Guitarists may play a variety of guitar family instruments such as classical guitars, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars. Some guitarists accompany themselve ...

Nick Cohon and Matt Solis, and

drummer A drummer is a percussionist who creates music using drums. Most contemporary western music ensemble, bands that play Rock music, rock, Pop music, pop, jazz, or Contemporary R&B, R&B music include a drummer for purposes including timekeepi ...

Brennan Kunkel. Since its inception, the band has remained intentionally and notably independent. It has eluded a specific genre label by incorporating elements of many different styles of music. While somewhat rooted in

black metal Black metal is an extreme metal, extreme subgenre of heavy metal music. Common traits include Tempo#Beats per minute, fast tempos, a Screaming (music)#Black metal, shrieking vocal style, heavily distorted Electric guitar, guitars played with tr ...

, the group has been known to incorporate

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form that originated among African Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues has incorporated spiritual (music), spirituals, work songs, field hollers, Ring shout, shouts, cha ...

progressive rock Progressive rock (shortened as prog rock or simply prog) is a broad genre of rock music that primarily developed in the United Kingdom through the mid- to late 1960s, peaking in the early-to-mid-1970s. Initially termed " progressive pop", the ...

death metal Death metal is an extreme metal, extreme subgenre of heavy metal music. It typically employs heavily distorted and low-tuned guitars, played with techniques such as palm muting and tremolo picking; deep death growl, growling vocals; aggressive ...

and

folk Folk or Folks may refer to: Sociology *Nation *People * Folklore ** Folk art ** Folk dance ** Folk hero ** Folk horror ** Folk music *** Folk metal *** Folk punk *** Folk rock ** Folk religion * Folk taxonomy Arts, entertainment, and media * Fo ...

elements to its music, among others. The band has released four

studio album An album is a collection of audio recordings (e.g., music) issued on a medium such as compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl (record), audio tape (like 8-track cartridge, 8-track or Cassette tape, cassette), or digital distribution, dig ...

s and one

extended play An extended play (EP) is a Sound recording and reproduction, musical recording that contains more tracks than a Single (music), single but fewer than an album. Contemporary EPs generally contain up to eight tracks and have a playing time of 1 ...

. The band released its debut EP ''The Last Tree'' in 2007, and released the studio albums, ''

Metazoa Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms in the biological kingdom Animalia (). With few exceptions, animals consume organic material, breathe oxygen, have myocytes and are able to move, can reproduce sexually, and grow from a hol ...

in September 2009,'' ''

Dwellings In law, a dwelling (also known as a residence, abode or domicile) is a self-contained unit of accommodation – such as a house, apartment, mobile home, houseboat, recreational vehicle, or other "substantial" structure – used as a home by on ...

'' in December 2011 and ''Earth Diver'' in April 2014. Their newest album, ''

Diaspora A diaspora ( ) is a population that is scattered across regions which are separate from its geographic place of birth, place of origin. The word is used in reference to people who identify with a specific geographic location, but currently resi ...

'', was released in August 2017.

History

Formation and ''The Last Tree'' (2007)

As described by von Nagel in an interview with the metal website Heavy Blog Is Heavy, the beginnings of the band can be traced to Kunkel and bassist von Nagel meeting while playing in a

thrash metal Thrash metal (or simply thrash) is an Extreme metal, extreme subgenre of heavy metal music characterized by its overall aggression and fast tempo.Kahn-Harris, Keith, ''Extreme Metal: Music and Culture on the Edge'', pp. 2–3, 9. Oxford: Berg, ...

band together in their late teens. After becoming subsequently bored with the limitations of the project, the two proceeded to make attempts at creating and demoing progressive black metal songs with Kunkel on guitar. These demos would form the earliest Cormorant content. Soon after the duo's first ventures, they proceeded to invite Brennan's friend Nick Cohon from their high school thrash/groove band, Kubla Khan, to the line up. Together, the trio recorded and released ''The Last Tree'' EP. Shortly after its release, the band met Solis at an Enslaved show and recruited him as second guitarist. The complete lineup would then dive straight into the writing and recording of the band's debut album, ''

''.

''Metazoa'' (2009)

''Metazoa'' was released on September 22, 2009, to critical praise for its varied and unique sound. With the Billy Anderson-produced album's success propagated by various metal websites and blogs, the band's independently created debut stood as a DIY and underground success. The album's success had the band featured in an exclusive feature on the website

Ultimate Guitar Archive Ultimate Guitar (Ultimate Guitar USA LLC), also known as Ultimate-Guitar.com or simply UG, is an online platform for guitarists and musicians, started on October 9, 1998 by Eugeny Naidenov and based in San Francisco, US. Its website and mobile ...

, focusing on the band's DIY success.

''Dwellings'' (2011)

''Dwellings'' was released on December 6, 2011, to further critical praise from both critics and fans alike. Despite ''Metazoas success, it did not receive as much publicity or widespread acclaim as ''Dwellings'' did. Sites including

NPR Music NPR Music is a project of National Public Radio, an American privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization, that launched in November 2007 to present public radio music programming and original editorial content for music ...

Yahoo! Music Yahoo Music was a brand under which Yahoo provided music services including Internet radio, a digital music store, music streaming service, media player software, and original programming. Yahoo Music was sold to Rhapsody in early 2008. Pro ...

and

about.com Dotdash Meredith (formerly The Mining Company, About.com and Dotdash) is an American digital media company based in New York City. The company publishes online articles and videos about various subjects across categories including health, hom ...

all listed ''Dwellings'' in their end of year favorites list, with NPR Music including it as the number-one metal album of 2011. "Dwellings is, far and away, the best metal record of 2011: an emotionally and musically complex album which wrestles with our desperate and sometimes violent attempts to secure a place in history.", said NPR Music's Lars Gotrich.

Influences

As revealed in various interviews, the band has been known to draw from various different genres, both within and outside of metal. Each of the band's members is known to have very diverse and far-reaching musical tastes that lend themselves in different ways to the band's music. Kunkel is known to enjoy creating hip-hop beats in his free time, whereas Cohon's previous musical endeavor was an old time fiddle band project as well as a blues band. Von Nagel references growing up on French folk and classical music before briefly experimenting with many genres such as pop and rock before finding a passion for metal.

Lyrics

Von Nagel is known to put significant effort into the band's lyrics, which have been a great source of praise for the band's music, cited as poignant and poetic by critics. Critic Alee Karim described the lyrics on ''Dwellings'' as "...the best example of a metal band incorporating topical and relevant lyrics since

Ludicra Ludicra is an American heavy metal band from San Francisco. They originally formed in 1998 as a quartet and later expanded to five members. In 2011, the band announced on their official website that they had disbanded, While the band's debut album, ''Metazoa'', focused mostly on themes of nature and the equilibrium of life and death, the topics therein have been varied, ranging the death of 18th century French politician

Maximilien de Robespierre Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre (; ; 6 May 1758 – 28 July 1794) was a French lawyer and statesman, widely recognised as one of the most influential and controversial figures of the French Revolution. Robespierre fer ...

on "Uneasy Lies the Head" to a metaphysically explorative descent from heaven to hell on "Hanging Gardens". ''Dwellings'' featured an overarching theme concerning the human spirit and the trials of humanity in pursuit of immortality throughout history. Though a thematic departure from the themes of nature in previous works, von Nagel's poetic and narrative style is consistent throughout the band's work.

DIY approach

The band has released all of its records independently, despite reportedly being made offers by various record labels. This DIY approach has become somewhat of a band trademark, especially concerning the marketing done for ''Dwellings''. As part of a pre-order deal made directly with the band, early adopters could choose from a variety of special collector editions of the album, complete with merchandise. These pre-orders sold out quickly, and allowed the band to fund part of the album's recording costs. The band's DIY success and retention of production quality have made it a common reference to the changing state of the music industry in the metal underground. Much of the band's independent success can be attributed to its marked Internet presence and use of services such as

Bandcamp Bandcamp is an American online music distribution platform founded in 2008 by Oddpost co-founder Ethan Diamond and programmers Shawn Grunberger, Joe Holt and Neal Tucker, with an office and record store in Oakland, California. Acquired by Epic ...

, which von Nagel has noted as "glorious".

Band members

* Marcus Luscombe – lead vocals, bass guitar (since 2013) * Nick Cohon – guitars (since 2007) * Matt Solis – guitars, vocals (since 2008) * Brennan Kunkel – drums, vocals (since 2007)

Past Band members

* Arthur von Nagel – lead vocals, bass guitar (2007–2012)

Discography

;Extended plays *''The Last Tree'' (2007) ;Studio albums *''Metazoa'' (2009) *''Dwellings'' (2011) *''Earth Diver'' (2014) *''Diaspora'' (2017)

References

External links

* , the band's official

. * * {{Authority control 2007 establishments in California American progressive metal musical groups Black metal musical groups from California Musical groups established in 2007 Musical groups from San Francisco