Cormorant’s New Song: Does it Sound Like Cormorant?

In November of 2012 Cormorant left Cormorant, “Cormorant” being Arthur von Nagel, the band’s public face. The remaining members, of course, vowed they’d continue on unfazed.

Now, after successfully crowd-funding an album via Indiegogo (the campaign is still running) and recording it using all mostly analog gear, we get our first true chance to judge Cormorant in the post-von Nagel era. Stereogum’s got “Waking Sleep,” [via Heavy Blog] which you can and should stream right here. There are some very Cormorant-y elements in this track — dominant black metal undertones, Opethian structures and an epic musical journey through nine friggin’ minutes — and overall the track is pretty solid, but somehow it doesn’t quite capture that Cormorant magic for me. Then again I wasn’t fully sold on 2011’s Dwellings either, which other critics raved about, although I loved their incredible 2009 debut Metazoa. So maybe I’m not the best person to be judging new Cormorant.

So, whatchoo think? Stream “Waking Sleep” right now then come back here and tell us — has von Nagel’s departure altered the band’s musical output for the worse or have the remaining members (plus one) delivered the goods in spite of it?

“Waking Sleep” will come from the new album Earth Diver, which the band doesn’t expect to release until March 2014.