Vexing Hex – Solve Et Coagula
Something wicked this way comes from the haunted cornfields of Illinois. Formed in 2014, VEXING HEX play doom rock and occult pop possessed by sharp melodies and genre-hopping devilry. Their lore begins in the late aughts, when a group of outsider youths formed a horror punk band called THE HAUNTS. After a hiatus, the remaining members reconvened in 2014 for one last hurrah. After an unexplained supernatural occurrence, they were possessed by forces beyond this realm. All that’s clear is the revenant witchlords of VEXING HEX are using these mortal vessels to spread their melodic witchery throughout the remains of this world.
“VEXING HEX is a pastiche of the past half-plus century of pop, alternative, and heavy music steeped in occult horror imagery,” shares Cadaverus, Lord of Dread. “We tend to wear our influences on our wizard’s sleeve, with artists such as GHOST, DANZIG, ALICE IN CHAINS, THE BEATLES, and DEVO being some that come to mind.”
On their sophomore album Solve Et Coagula, VEXING HEX conjure the specters from numerous (un)dead genres. Occult Doom. Traditional Heavy Metal. ‘80s New Wave. Grunge. Prog Rock. The album is an eclectic, many-headed beast defined by its indefinable charm. Thematically, the album explores alchemy and transformation, death and rebirth, light and darkness, existential dread, as well as psychological horror and eldritch realms.
“Solve Et Coagula means to break something down to its basic elements and reform it into something new, and we vaguely attempted to do that with our musical DNA for this album,” Cadaverus explains. “Haunt was a very esoteric and gloom-laden album. While there’s no lack of that doom-stricken atmosphere on Solve Et Coagula, we also cut loose a bit, explored some fresh influences, and injected some more whimsy and camp into the concoction. The resulting distillation is a familiar but more potent VEXING HEX, with some new flavors expressed within our sonic cocktail.”
On June 21st, VEXING HEX will unleash Solve Et Coagula on this mortal realm. The album will be released on Vinyl, CD, and Digital from Wise Blood Records. Until then, track down one of the few remaining artifacts of their Haunt debut before venturing “Into the Night” with VEXING HEX.
VEXING HEX is:
Cadaverus, Lord of Dread – Lead Vocals, Guitar
Hastur, Lord of Madness – Bass, Vocals
Liminos, Lord of Illusion – Guitar, Vocals
Radament, Lord of Despair – Vocals, Drums
Viscera, Lord of Torment – Keys
All music and lyrics by Chris Cadaverus
Produced, engineered, mixed, and mastered by Chris Cadaverus
Drums engineered by Zakk Burke at the Roadhouse Studio
Drum compositions by Radament
Auxiliary percussion performed by Sanguine the Bat
Guest vocal on “Revivified” by Cuntess Bitchory
Drum samples on “Sarcophagus” created by Jaiden Claudía Lewis
Artwork by Victor Lopez
Group photos by Laura Woelfle
Logo by Dan Capp
Layout by David Jaggar
