The music of the Canadian band Drofnosura is less a collection of songs than it is a physical pressure, a sound of immense weight defined by a texture of slow, suffocating dread. It is an atmosphere built from guitars so saturated and heavy they seem to bend the air. With its forthcoming album, the band is channeling a specific kind of despair—a sorrow that mirrors the vast, cold, and inexorable expanse of the Canadian North.

That sound finds its full expression on ‘Ritual of Split Tongues,’ the band’s sophomore album, scheduled for release on October 24, 2025. The album will be released by Transcending Obscurity Records, a label that has become a global arbiter for challenging and forward-thinking extreme music, making this release a significant moment for the Canadian underground scene.

For Drofnosura — a trio from Toronto, Ontario, identified only by the initials W.L.F., D.A.S., and M.A.D. — the album is an ambitious attempt to channel the country’s distinct heavy metal traditions, particularly those of the influential Quebec scene, into a new and punishingly resonant form.

Drofnosura: A Brief History

Drofnosura was formed in 2010 in Toronto, Ontario, initially as a studio project between W.L.F. (guitars, vocals, synthesizers) and D.A.S. (drums and percussion, vocals, synthesizers). Their early work, captured on the 2014 EP ‘I’ and the 2015 EP ‘Avidyā,’ was a raw exploration of blackened doom metal, characterized by long, atmospheric compositions.

The addition of M.A.D. (bass, vocals, synthesizers) in 2021 solidified the lineup and expanded their sonic palette. This evolution culminated in their 2019 full-length debut, ‘Voidfever,’ an album that gained them a following in the Canadian underground for its successful fusion of sludge metal’s visceral weight with a bleak, melancholic atmosphere.

It was this progression that caught the attention of Transcending Obscurity Records. In the band’s own press statements, they describe a deliberate evolution from the “bleak, spacious world of ‘Voidfever’ to the more chaotic, riff-heavy terrain of ‘Ritual of Split Tongues’.” The story is not one of a new band emerging, but of an established band refining and intensifying their sound.

A Global Stage for a Northern Sound

The alliance between Drofnosura and Transcending Obscurity Records is itself significant. The label has established a reputation as a curatorial force, with a sprawling international roster that signals a philosophy of prizing artistic integrity over strict genre conformity. Its catalog serves as a global survey of extreme music, from Lithuanian death metal to Brazilian doom metal and avant-garde black metal from the United States. The addition of Drofnosura is a deliberate move, placing a distinctly Canadian sound onto a world stage.

This is not the label’s first venture into the Canadian underground. It is already home to a contingent of Canadian acts, including Crown of Madness (British Columbia), Fathomless Ritual (Ontario), and Ignominy (Quebec), suggesting a sustained, national appreciation for the country’s heavy music. For Drofnosura, the partnership represents a culmination of its artistic journey. That the label is named Transcending Obscurity becomes a narrative event in itself, transforming a business arrangement into a thematic expression on the power of a localized artistic vision to achieve a global reach.

An Inheritance of Extremity: The Canadian Soundscape

To appreciate Drofnosura’s work, one must consider the musical scene from which it draws influence. For decades, Canadian extreme metal has been largely defined by two dominant and often separate traditions, both with deep roots in the province of Quebec. The dynamic reflects the nation’s broader cultural duality, often referred to as the “Two Solitudes.”

The first tradition is the internationally acclaimed school of technical death metal from Quebec. Bands such as Gorguts, Cryptopsy, Kataklysm and Neuraxis defined a Canadian style of metal built on staggering complexity and instrumental virtuosity. The music is characterized by its precision and ambition, pushing the structural and instrumental boundaries of the genre.

The second is Métal Noir Québécois, or Quebec Black Metal. This movement is defined less by technicality than by its profound sense of place and history. Its sound is informed by recurring regional themes: the Canadian winter, a melancholy rooted in Québécois history and nationalism, and a reverence for nature. Bands like Forteresse, Gris and Monarque created a sound that, while influenced by early Norwegian black metal, evolved into a distinct regional style.

Drofnosura’s classification as a sludge metal band is, on its face, a contradiction. The genre’s origins are in the American South, its sound often described as thick and suffocating, reflecting themes of urban decay. But from their base in Ontario, the band appears to be forging a third path, synthesizing these disparate traditions. Drofnosura fuses the thematic weight of Quebec Black Metal—its focus on isolation and landscape—with the sonic vocabulary of sludge metal, creating a uniquely Canadian version of the genre by infusing its punishing sonic template with the thematic and emotional elements of an influential national scene.

Deciphering the ‘Ritual of Split Tongues’

The album’s slow, heavy riffs and strained vocals evoke not the humidity of the American South, but the suffocating weight of a winter storm. The music translates the aesthetic of cold and darkness, central to Quebec Black Metal, into the sonic language of sludge. Its heaviness can be interpreted less as anger and more as a kind of geological pressure, a sound that suggests isolation in a vast landscape.

The album’s title, ‘Ritual of Split Tongues,’ can be read as a metaphor for Canada’s foundational cultural and linguistic duality, a national division mirrored in its metal scene. In this context, the “ritual” of the album can be seen as the artistic process of giving voice to this divided identity. The music itself—a fusion of a genre with Anglophone origins and the thematic weight of a predominantly Francophone scene—becomes the performance of this ritual.

The Vision of Despair: The Art of Dusty Ray

The visceral horror of the album’s cover is the work of North American painter Dusty Ray, an artist who has become increasingly sought-after for his distinctively nightmarish and surrealist vision. This marks his second collaboration with the band, as Ray also created the artwork for their 2019 debut, ‘Voidfever.’

According to the band, the decision to work with Ray again was a “deliberate choice—a thread connecting the bleak, spacious world of ‘Voidfever’ to the more chaotic, riff-heavy terrain of ‘Ritual of Split Tongues’.” This reveals the cover art as an integral part of the album’s narrative and its relationship to the band’s past work.

Working primarily in gouache and oils, Ray has developed a signature style that is both beautiful and grotesque. His focus on the visceral and the internal makes his art a fitting visual counterpart to the sonic weight of bands like Drofnosura. This approach has made him a popular choice for a diverse range of musical artists, from the German metal band Chaver to the pop star Doja Cat, all of whom have sought out his unique ability to translate complex emotions into unforgettable images.

Conclusion

‘Ritual of Split Tongues’ is positioned as more than a new release; it is a notable statement in the evolution of Canadian extreme music. The album draws upon the country’s dual artistic inheritance—the technical ambition of one tradition and the atmospheric sorrow of another—while forging a new path. The result is a sound that is both geographically specific and emotionally universal.

A tour is planned to support the album, which will take the band’s distinct interpretation of despair to a wider audience. Drofnosura’s work is a powerful example of how established musical forms can be reinterpreted through a powerful sense of place. It proves that from the harshest environments, a formidable artistic voice can emerge, speaking a language forged from division itself.