Musically, Hart is relentlessly intense, serving up richly layered core-suffixed metal with flamboyant Slayer-esque guitar licks, spastic time changes, breakneck drumming and blood-curdling barbarian vocals. It's also characteristically Northwestern - the first sound heard on Earth Control (due out Jan. 18 on Vitriol Records) is rain dripping ominously from a gutter.

The LPs lead-off single "Methlehem" - written about Trust's experience growing up in drug-addled Parkland, Wash. - perfectly captures the dreariness and abject darkness of Pacific Northwestern suburbs. (Owen Hart would make an apt, if offbeat, substitution for Angelo Badalamenti's timeless Twin Peaks score - appropriately, when the band plays Seattle next week, they'll be performing at a DIY space called The Black Lodge.)

Read the full story, including a chat with the band, here.

[Northern, Owen Hart with Deafheaven, Dead Head, Friday, Jan. 7, 8 p.m., all-ages, 321 Fourth Ave., Olympia, northernolympia.org]