Welcome back to another edition of Milwaukee Metal Monthly. For this installment, our story begins a coupl’a weeks back with me browsing around Bandcamp for Milwaukee bands. I used filters for “Milwaukee” and “metal” and then organized the results by “new arrivals.” Some of the results were amusing, including Drown The Lifeguard, Satan’s Dealer, and Splattered Cadaver, the latter of which has songs called “Cycles Of Sickened Thoughts,” “Dismembered For Pleasure,” and—get ready—“Gut Fucking Maniac.” This gleeful absurdity is the balm we need right now.
I also discovered the first band I’ll be discussing, a doom/stoner metal outfit called Psychic Shiv. There it was: a three-song EP called Wearing Black that had just been released on September 21. The EP’s cover art—Stephen King meets David Lynch meets pop art—was what caught my attention, so I sent the duo a message asking about an interview.
They were, let’s say, skeptical. “To be honest, we didn’t think [my inquiry] was real,” confesses vocalist Jadzia Guzmán. “We we were like, ‘Uh, okay…’”
Guitarist Mike Vichich then adds with a laugh, “Yeah, like who’s this robot?”
Guzmán then jumps back in: “At first, I was like ‘Maybe this is some auto-email. There’s no way that anyone actually wants to talk to us about this.’”
Maybe that’s because the band is so new that their entry in the Encyclopaedia Metallum was created just last month. “We formed early last year,” states Guzmán. “We met through a mutual friend. We started out as a three-piece, so we had a drummer in the beginning. But within the first couple months, it wasn’t working out for him, so he decided to depart. Ever since, we’ve been a two-piece.” (Vichich later clarifies via email that it’s a drum machine on Wearing Black, and that they are looking for a real drummer to round out the group.)
Given the freshness of the project—and especially the just-released EP, recorded using a set-up in Vichich’s spare bedroom—expectations weren’t exactly lofty. “We honestly weren’t expecting much attention at all from it,” says Guzmán. “This whole thing was just a proof-of-concept. This was just kind of like ‘Hey, this is our little idea. We’ll come out with more stuff. We just want [the public] to know that this exists.’”
The story of how Psychic Shiv’s core duo met is equally fitting in tone. “When I was in high school and I was joining these little bands, I had a lotta friends that were interested in music,” recalls Guzmán. “And then I graduated, and people moved away, so I didn’t really have anyone to bond with over that kind of stuff. And it reignited a fire in me when I was introduced to Mike. He was the person I was looking for to share this love [of music] with. Music has always been a passion of mine, but it did burn out for a long time. And so Mike was absolutely crucial for me to get out there. He’s been such a backbone for me to develop myself and put myself out there, because for a while I didn’t think that it was going to be a reality for me.”
Vichich’s explanation for this is simple. “I know talent when I see it,” he states matter-of-factly. “A hundred percent.”
And that complimentary nature goes both ways over the course of our phone call. When Guzmán mentions that they have a couple of new songs they’re working on—one of them has the Pynchon-esque title “The Deboning Of A Pink Rabbit”—she remarks that Vichich is “kind of a powerhouse” when it comes to writing. A little later, she declares that “Mike is always working on something. It’s a never-ending thing. It’s always something all the time.”
Perhaps that’s why Wearing Black sounds so focused and confident. (When I point out that my favorite part is the final third of “Old Gods” where it opens up and goes nuts, Vichich replies with a chuckle, “That’s kinda the vibe I was going for: Ozzy Osbourne with a face full of coke.”) What makes the EP work is that it’s a collage of stoner and doom influences, the result of careful study. Which makes sense: the duo’s excellent taste in music is how they got along so well so quickly.
“We really bonded over being into bands like Black Sabbath and Electric Wizard,” states Guzmán. Vichich then effortlessly tosses out Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats, and then Guzmán does the same with Windhand and Cough. Their bond, it appears, has triple-covalent strength.
And that’s the story (so far) of Psychic Shiv—bonding over making something for themselves and then people discovering it by happenstance. “Music was always something that I was drawn to,” concludes Guzmán. “So when I met Mike, I told him I really wanted to do this—I wanted to actually put together a band and write things and go out there, because I know that for the rest of my life, if I didn’t do it I know that I would always regret it. I was always drawn to music. I always wanted to do something music-wise. It’s always going to be a part of me.”
And that passion and love has paid off. “The support that we have gotten from people has been kind of mind-boggling,” remarks Guzmán. “The fact that people are listening and talking about [Wearing Black] and sharing it—this really caused us to be inspired. This really lit a fire in us, I would say.”
That aforementioned Bandcamp search also led me to The Cold Reminiscence Within Obscurity, a black metal album released on September 23, by the other band covered for this month’s column, Imprecation Of Love. The first thing I did when I decided to explore further was to look up the word “imprecation.” It can mean “curse” in the sense of putting a hex or evil prayer on somebody, and it can also mean “curse” in the sense of an offensive word.
When I ask Alexander Tinoco, the 17-year-old mastermind behind the one-man band, what the name means, he explains, “A curse of love. It describes a lot about false love and desire. It sounds contradictory when you hear it—a curse, but then love? How does that work? When I put it together, it means the separation of desires and love.”
The first thing to know about Tinoco is that he got into creating music early. “I guess when I was 12 I started making music, or at least experimenting,” he says. “I started by downloading crappy drum-pad apps for my phone and making hip-hop beats, but they were really bad ones, off-beat ones.”
Tinoco’s discovery of darker sounds came at 13, when his online friend Charles broadened his horizons. “I kinda lied my way through [the conversation about music],” he admits. “Charles asked ‘Do you know black metal?’ and I told him I did. Then he said, ‘What’s your favorite band?,’ and I was searching for black metal bands. Then I saw Venom and said I liked them, and he said, ‘Oh, they’re a good band.’ And it just sprouted from there.” (If you want or need a quick primer on black metal, the video below will do just fine.)
After learning drums and getting back into guitar in middle school—and at some point he also learned bass but forgot how it happened, saying that it “just appeared in my hands”—Tinoco’s early bands with his friends were mostly flame-outs due to interpersonal conflict. A bit later he formed a black metal band and even recorded a song.
“But after that single, everything went downhill, and then I left,” he states. “I can’t work with people. No one has my creativity, so I’ll just do something on my own.”
That’s when Tinoco decided to go solo, and Imprecation Of Love was born. “I recorded one album, a really bad album, that was really de-tuned and really crappy music,” he remembers. “And then I got self-conscious about my musician skills, so I took [the album] off Bandcamp and Youtube. Then I made my first demo, The Unpure Existence.”
Which brings us to the other thing to know about Tinoco: he’s highly prolific in terms of output. Indeed, his productivity makes King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard seem lazy; since Unpure’s release in April 2024, Imprecation Of Love has issued six albums, two EPs, and a single for a multi-artist split.
“Last year I didn’t have a job, so I had too much time on my hands,” explains Tinoco. “And with a lotta time comes a lotta music.”
When asked where all these ideas come from, it’s sort of a mystery. “I dunno,” he says with a shrug. “My brain is weird. Sometimes I get idea after idea after idea.” He stops to consider for a moment, then: “It’s just like—if I have the idea in my head, I have to record it right away, or it’s just going to slip away and never come back.” (On top of all that, he’s already planning another project, describing it as “black metal and emo mixed together.”)
That means his ever-growing catalog will be intimidating for newcomers, and that’s setting aside the unappealing nature of black metal. Imprecation Of Love’s second album, My Poems Burned Away from October 2024, is probably Tinoco’s best full-length (“I kind of developed my own sound around that time,” he observes), channeling the psychedelic posturings of Nachtmystium and the blackgaze sheen of Deafheaven.
An easier entry point, however, is Insomnia… (Endless Thoughts Of Eternal Love) from December 2024. Looking back, Tinoco calls Insomnia “my favorite record because of how depressively romantic it is.” Fittingly, it’s ambient black metal, meaning that the hallmarks of black metal—monotonous tremolo riffing, shrieking, blast beats, lo-fi production, etc.—are sometimes absent for entire songs, with some of the music being rather pretty.
The other thing that’s frequently absent from Tinoco’s brand of black metal is the genre’s lyrical disposition. Black metal, generally speaking, is dark. Much of it is unflinching in its exploration of the pitch-black corners of the human mind, even going as far as suicidal ideation. It’s also known for being notoriously anti-Christian and pro-Satan. And while Tinoco can write as bleakly as anyone in black metal (“I’m alone in my own thoughts / No one’s truly here / I feel so fake”), his bent is explicitly Christian, making his writing stand out. His lyricism often covers sinning (“I’m living for nothing / Sinning my life away”) and being forsaken (“Why are You so far from saving me / So far from the words of my groaning?”). That’s not to say his whole catalog is like that, though. Rays of (Christian) sunshine often poke through the clouds, as when he’s simply asking for forgiveness (“Oh great God, the one and only / Show mercy to me”), or when he’s basking in His radiance (“The light is so bright / Got rid of my darkness / Stand before the presence / The love grew stronger”).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-04NsjDZ2s
And that may seem like a contradiction—playing black metal with Christian themes, even if they are morose at times—but Tinoco can reconcile it. “I do believe in God and Jesus,” he asserts, “but I used to feel like [God] would not really care about me as much. So I had strong feelings about that. Then I recently learned [through Bible study] that He cares about everyone, that He loves everyone.”
In other words, Imprecation Of Love operates within a framework of, let’s call it, cautious optimism. “I’m still discovering myself musically, still discovering my own tone,” concludes Tinoco. “Every [new] release is gonna sound different until I find a tone where I feel I should do more of it.”
As for live performances, that’s being put on the back burner. “I was getting ready to play live, but then I decided I’m gonna wait because of work and life,” he says.
Part of the reason for that hesitancy is due to a troublesome basement show back in April where the PA system blew out before his set and he couldn’t hear himself when he did go on. (Later he expands on that via email: “I couldn’t hear anything. It was funny because the last song I was just playing drums and screaming.”)
“It was a really bad show, but I hope to redeem myself in the near future,” he states. So while there are plans for new music and live shows, Tinoco suggests some patience is in order: “You guys are gonna have to stay tuned.”
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