Torn

Torn is a funeral doom album by Abysmal Growls Of Despair, the one-man project that the UK-based multi-instrumentalist Hangsvart has run since 2013, and its four pieces follow a husband as he looks after a wife who is fighting cancer. What sets it apart is where the melody sits: rather than leaving the tunes to the guitar alone, Hangsvart puts trombones and tubas in front, over an eight-string guitar tuned to F sharp and low C and a voice dragged up from deep in the throat. By his own account the brass and the drums are virtual instruments. He composed, played, sang, recorded, mixed and mastered all of it; the lyrics come from Jörg Püschmann, a German author of horror short stories, and the artwork from Patrick Corcoran. The project works from funeral doom, drone and ritual dark ambient, with SUNN O))), Remembrance, Ataraxie, Funeral Moth and Comatose Vigil among its touchstones, and Hangsvart has been candid about the schizophrenia he has lived with since 2007 and its place at the centre of his music. WormHoleDeath announced the signing in April 2026 and released Torn on 5 June, after a lyric video for "Prologue to Agony" in May; in July the label split "Growth" into a two-part video because of its length. Hangsvart, who had already put out around a dozen physical albums on other labels, called the deal a step up that would reach a far wider audience. The Japanese edition, BITX1498, is an imported disc with Japanese packaging from WormHoleDeath Japan, out on 30 November 2026.