Or: The Time I Went Looking for Osi and Found Divine Feminine Face-Ripping Instead
I was supposed to be doing research.
You know—something calm. Sensible. Just prepping for an interview with Osi and the Jupiter during Fortress Festival. No big deal (lol, who am I kidding). And then I tripped, fell, and broke my entire nervous system over a band called Avowal.
One moment, I was reading about neofolk.
The next, I was knee-deep in distortion, goddess worship, and the sort of vocals that make your neighbours question your life choices.
Which—frankly—is exactly the kind of research detour I should’ve seen coming.
Kent, Ohio Strikes Again
Turns out Avowal is fronted by Elyse Hirsch, who also plays bass and provides backing vocals for Osi and the Jupiter. But while Osi is all ancient spirits and melancholy forests, Avowal is more “goddess with a knife screaming in your face.”
Active since 2019, they’re a death/thrash/punk/black/whatever band from Kent, Ohio that proudly gives zero fucks about genre. The band bio throws around phrases like brash intensity, divination, and out-of-step defiance. And honestly? It’s not wrong.
Also in the lineup:
- Logan Kruzel – lead guitar
- Sean Deth (yes, Sean Kratz from Osi) – bass
- Christian "Kracker" Krucker – drums
Kent is clearly hoarding all the best crossover weirdos. Someone check the water.
Lessons in Technical Difficulties – or, How I Learned to Love the Mead and Fear the Feedback
Lessons in Technical Difficulties is a live EP recorded at the gloriously named "Rigor Craft’s Party Like It’s 793 Mead, Metal, and Viking Festival."
Yes. That’s a real sentence.
The set was captured at Brimming Horn Meadery, which tells you everything you need to know about the vibe: sticky, loud, slightly possessed.
And it rules.
This thing is raw. Mean. Slightly unstable. You can hear the sweat, the feedback, the crowd noise bleeding into the distortion like it’s trying to escape the room.
Magician (which is a version of the first single High King Margo The Destroyer Creator—why? No clue, the first title slapped, text me if you know*) opens with the kind of line that makes you instinctively straighten your back:
| "I am not a princess. I am a fucking high king."
And that’s it. That’s the moment you know what kind of show this is. It’s not a performance—it’s a detonation.
Fast, sharp, unapologetic. Thrashy in the quick parts, sludgey and dangerous in the slower ones. The vocals are absolutely unhinged. And can I just say? BLERGH.
I need more of this in my life.
And then World happens. This is what I wish I could scream at strangers in public, if society and lung capacity weren’t holding me back. It’s loud, ugly, falling apart in the best way, and just the right amount of dissonant. The vocals are on a different plane. It’s the sound of setting a building on fire just to stay warm.
Death. This one’s 97 seconds long and somehow still manages to commit multiple felonies.
There’s a video. There’s a shark. The whole thing is barely long enough to register, but it hits like a thrown bottle. A quick burst of absolute fury. Nothing more. Nothing less. Nothing else needed.
If you’ve ever wanted to sprint through a brick wall for no reason—this is your soundtrack.
And then there’s Judgement (Circe's Revenge). That opening line about witchy women and badly behaved men? I want it carved into a wall. This song doesn’t just stomp, it lurches—slow, heavy, dragging you through the dirt until suddenly the drums take off and everything’s on fire. Vengeful. Filthy. Beautifully unhinged.
There’s something incredibly satisfying about hearing a woman scream with this much clarity, control, and venom. You don’t flinch—you lean in. You want to scream back. Or at least throw your drink in solidarity. At least I do.
There’s no tidy takeaway here. No clean production. Just six tracks of glorious chaos and the kind of presence you can’t fake. It’s loud. It’s messy. And it owns it.
The Caption That Made Me Imprint on Elyse
| “I’m one of those weirdos that likes Carnivore just a bit more than *Type O 😅 Either way… Can’t go wrong with Peter Steele.”
Oh, girl. Yeah. That’ll do it.
Correct. Accurate. Approved. High five.
That’s not a throwaway opinion. That’s an alignment chart.
And if you say that—with that voice, making this kind of noise?
You don’t need to explain anything else to me.
I'm all in.
If this is you, get in the fucking van.
This is for the ones who want their music with an attitude problem.
For anyone who’s ever felt the unholy urge to kick a chair through a wall—just because it’s there.
This is for my girls who aren’t afraid to go full-blown unhinged.
Because why the fuck not.
This is for the ones who want distortion so thick you could drown in it.
For the bass addicts.
For the snarl collectors.
For the ones who don’t want pretty vocals—they want power, teeth, and just the right amount of “I will bite your face off.”
If that’s you?
Avowal’s already waiting.
Distortion’s on. Sanity’s off. Let’s go.
*Editor's Note
Turns out the title change was part of a tarot theme running through the whole EP. Each track represents a Major Arcana card.
DUH.
I missed it.
I own tarot decks.
How. The fuck. Did I not see this.
See screenshot. Facepalm mandatory.
