A week ago, Metal Injection brought you news that San Francisco's Botanist is releasing a new album on August 11th via The Flenser Records. The album is titled IV: Flora and it's yet another chapter in the ongoing story of a botanist who retreats into nature to await the destruction of mankind and the subsequent reclamation of the planet by plant life. Now, Botanist has given us the first taste Flora in the form of a song stream hosted at The Quietus.
Up to this point, Botanist's music has been both highly original and highly bizarre thanks to the thematic content and mastermind Otrebor's reliance on a hammered dulcimer as the primary instrument in all his songs, but it's still recognizable as black metal. However, the press release for Flora indicated that Otrebor was moving in a new direction on his upcoming sixth album – something more ethereal sounding than his previous work. So, here now, is the first taste of Botanist's new direction. The track is called "Callistemon" (named for a genus of Australian shrubs) and it's definitely a departure from Otrebor's past work. This track sheds the misanthropic cloud that hung over Botanist's past albums in favor of a sound that can accurately be described as uplifting. Being that Flora deals with the beauty of nature and the awe it inspires, this radical change in sound makes a lot of sense. If the rest of the album is this good, Botanist is likely going to have a lot more fans this August.
