Audiopile Review: It’s easy to take Khanate’s legendary status for granted. After all, how could any avant metal band featuring members of Sunn O)))), OLD, and Blind Idiot God be anything less than legendary? Well, back in 2001, when Khanate’s self-titled debut album was released, extreme metal was far from respectable among fans of left-field rock. Faaar from it, dude. The fact that bands like Wolves in the Throne Room and Blood Incantation enjoy acclaim beyond the metal ghetto is thanks in large part to Stephen O’Malley, James Plotkin, and pals. Their piercing, relentless sound burrowed a hole that all manner of high-minded miscreants has crawled through since. How did they manage this? That’s something else that should not be taken for granted: Khanate’s music is truly, truly extraordinary. An album combining the sonic water torture of early Swans with the roiling sludge of prime Butthole Surfers and the sociopathic angst of The Jesus Lizard? What self-respecting avant rocker could turn that down just because it was technically ‘metal’? Having grabbed some attention, Khanate set out for the next level. And 2003’s ‘Things Viral’ is certainly next level, reducing an already caustic sound to spindly, spidery strands of white-hot piano wire. Anyone who’d been thinking Alan Dubin’s shrieking vocals were already as inhuman as possible was in for a shock. Twenty years later, ‘Things Viral’ is still shocking and clearly a masterpiece. Absolutely fantastic to see these essential albums back in print, following the surprise release of the band’s 2023 triumphant comeback, To Be Cruel.

Khanate’s self titled debut (2001) has all the pleasant ambiance of a plane crash site, a bleak urban waste of mangled and torn metal beams and hissed alarms. When Khanate first issued instructions to the void in 2001, the band was embraced as the next iteration of guitarist Stephen O’Malley’s tube cracking forays into amplifier variance; a fascinating further step of vocalist Alan Dubin and low-frequency shifter James Plotkin’s space charts; and a warning for the crawling-pace hammers of Tim Wyskida’s drums. But Khanate was not preaching of coming doom or offering emotional catharsis. The band was totally post-dread. The worst had already happened, and would continue to happen, over and over. The 5 songs on Khanate sound like an “orchestrated root canal” (Julian Cope).