The year was 1995. I was moving from Missoula, MT to Minneapolis, MN via a Greyhound bus, with little on me but my bass, a few items of clothing, and a CD Walkman. The ride was around 48 hours or so, if not more, and the landscape of Eastern Montana and North Dakota is nothing but barren, brown wasteland dotted occasionally with a gas station or small run down town.
A week or so earlier I had purchased the newly released Ras Algethi debut album through the Fullmoon Records catalogue. I bought it on a whim, never even being slightly familiar with the band at the time. Perhaps if I had known that it had affiliations with Monumentum, I would have been more prepared.
It was about 1am and I was in a ghost town populated by perhaps 100 people at the most called Oxbow, Montana, right at the edge of the MT/ND border and I put this album in my CD player. This is the closest thing I have ever had to a religious experience while listening to someone else's music. It changed me, it moved me, and every dead town, every slab of road kill, and every solitary mysterious light in the distance fit in with what I was hearing at each moment. I listened to that CD non stop until I hit Minneapolis, about 8 times in all.
Once getting settled in Mpls, I contacted Ras Algethi main-man, Mauro Berchi, and we have been friends ever since. Shortly after this album was released, Ras Algethi morphed into Canaan, and Mauro started the eclectic and awesome label, Eibon Records.
This album is one of my favorite albums ever, and one of the best and most convincing moments in doom metal. Period.
