Death Song is the first full-length release in four years from The Black Angels – Austin’s five-piece psych rock masters – and their debut for Partisan Records.

Written and recorded in large part during the recent election cycle, the music on Death Song serves as part protest, part emotional catharsis in a climate dominated by division, anxiety and unease. “Currency,” a strong contender for the heaviest song the band has ever put to wax, meditates on the governing role the monetary system plays in our lives, while slow-building psychedelic earworm “Half Believing” questions the nature and confusing realities of devotion.

Recorded between Seattle and Austin, Death Song features production from Phil Ek (Father John Misty, Fleet Foxes, The Shins). The 11-track collection offers a sharply honed elaboration on their signature sound - menacing fuzz guitar and cutting wordplay, steeped in a murky hallucinatory dream.

The band will tour extensively behind Death Song, including a headline set at one of the first-ever shows at new NYC venue Brooklyn Steel on May 2nd. Full itinerary below for “The Death March Tour”, which begins in Nashville. The band will be supported by A Place to Bury Strangers.

Since forming in Austin in 2004, The Black Angels have become standard-bearers for modern psych-rock, and the New York Times has said they “play psychedelic rock as if the 1960s never ended, and they are absolute masters of it”. The band has toured with Queens of the Stone Age, Brian Jonestown Massacre, the Black Keys + more, and played festivals such as Glastonbury, Fuji Rock, Primavera, Harvest Fest, Coachella and Bonnaroo. Two of the band members co-founded Levitation Festival (formerly Austin Psych Fest) in 2008, which has since grown into one of the best-reviewed and expertly-curated festivals in the country (returning in 2018).

“The Tuvan throat singing phenomenon that is SORIAH will take you to that holy place whenever you lend an ear to his music.”

– David J (Bauhaus, Love and Rockets, Night Crickets)

SORIAH is the stage persona of Enrique Ugalde, an internationally-acclaimed throat singer and ritual artist who generates experimental soundscapes where ancient traditions are revealed through the lens of modern experience.

Birthed in one of the most historically isolated locations on the planet, Tuvan throat singing is a musical sound like no other. Mysterious, primordial and awash in a deeply visceral drone, it invokes the full range of the natural world – from deep mountain roots to the whistle of birds in flight.

SORIAH weaves Tuvan throat singing, pre-Columbian sounds, classical Indian raga, and modern Western styles, looping and processing his voice and traditional instruments into lush sonic tapestries. His lyrics are often written in Nahuatl (Mexica/Aztec) or Tuvan, preserving and expressing cultural mysteries with reverence  and wonder.

“SORIAH’s truly stunning extended vocal technique is peerless…beautifully odd, elevatingly dark and utterly lovely.”

– Thomas Jones (Crossroads Music)

In 2008 SORIAH was awarded “Best Foreigner” at the Üstüü-Khüree Festival in Tuva and received the “Third Laureate” award in the 2008 Fifth Quinquennial Ethnomusicology Symposium, the highest honor a non-native Tuvan had yet achieved in this field. In 2019 he won the award for best Kargyraa in the International “Khöömei in the Center of Asia” Festival, in 2020, he was awarded the title “Magical Musician of Khöömei”, and in 2022, he won the first place in the International “Khoomei in the Center of Asia” online competition. His entry into the Tuvan Anthropological Museum speaks to the deep impact his work has within its native culture.

“Totally breathtaking. SORIAH conjures up a haunting sonic otherworld, drifting, dreamy, menacing and malefic, a rumbling, whirring dark ambient dronescape, thick with natural timbre and dense with subtle overtones.”

– Aquarius Records

When not visiting or competing in Tuva, SORIAH showcases to sold-out crowds in Europe, Japan, Mexico, and the United States. He has shared the stage with artists including Peter Murphy and David J (Bauhaus), cEvin Key (Skinny Puppy), Perry Farrell (Jane’s Addiction), Liberation Movement, and Clan of Xymox. He has contributed to studio recordings of Modest Mouse, The Dandy Warhols, Thor and Friends and Hans Joachim Roedelius. He was also a noted performer at the 2009 Peace Ball to celebrate Obama’s inauguration in Washington, D.C.

He also has collaborated with the renown soundtrack composer, Yasunori Nishiki on the 2021 Konami video game “Solomon Program”.

Through his extensive humanitarian work, SORIAH remains dedicated to reminding audiences of traditions that transcend time and cultural boundaries, heightening awareness and revealing the divinity of each precious moment.