15 DECEMBER 18-24, 2025 westword.com WESTWORD | CONTENTS | LETTERS | NIGHT+DAY | CULTURE | CAFE | MUSIC | FIND MORE MUSIC COVERAGE AT WESTWORD.COM/MUSIC Decade of Doom KHEMMIS LOOKS BACK ON THE TEN YEARS SINCE ITS GROUNDBREAKING DEBUT. BY JUSTIN CRIADO Khemmis is synonymous with modern doom metal at this point, backed by a consistent catalog of harmonious heavy hitters chock- full of those signature guitar harmonies and bone-rattling beats. But when the then-unknown Denver band released its debut, Absolution, in 2015, no one could have predicted the rosy recep- tion it would receive, particularly those who were responsible for writing it. We caught up with the hometown riff- and-roll kings to revisit the last decade of doom and discuss what went into that in- augural game-changing LP, as well as what’s next, as the band prepares for its Absolution ten-year anniversary show on Saturday, December 20, at the Gothic Theatre. Vocalist-guitarist Ben Hutcherson, who formed Khemmis in 2012 while he and co- guitarist-vocalist Phil Pendergast were both sociology Ph.D. students at the University of Colorado Boulder, says he’d recently been tabbing out guitar parts for the song “Burden of Sin,” a Khemmis deep cut from the fi rst album that the quartet’s only performed twice before. Revisiting it made him realize he’s come a long way as a player since those early days. “I had this memory of recording that solo, and I got so frustrated because the opening lick of that solo was the hardest thing I could do on the guitar at that point,” he recalls. “I just picked it out in, like, fi fteen seconds. It’s been a while, so it’s nice to say that I have im- proved in every facet as a musician. It makes me appreciate those kinds of moments.” Pendergast thanks his bandmate for tak- ing care of all the tablature. “I don’t really ever listen to our records after we put them out because any songs that we’re playing, I just remember how to play it or fi gure it out, so it’s been fun to revisit the record for me,” he says, likening it to looking back at an old high-school yearbook photo. “It’s both embarrassing and inspiring at the same time. It’s cool to look back at something like this that did so much for us and feel a sense of pride. But also excitement to do it even better, potentially, live. We got a chance to update it, to some degree.” “Some of these songs we literally haven’t played in years and years and years, so we got to remember how they go fi rst,” quips Hutcherson, a former CU Boulder sociology instructor. Clocking in at just un- der 42 minutes, the six- song Absolution, featuring such stalwart songs as “The Bereaved” and “Ser- pentine,” broadened what doom could be, garnering praise throughout the un- derground almost imme- diately, particularly after Decibel magazine placed the release at No. 9 on its Top 40 Albums of 2015 year-end list, much to the surprise of the Khemmis crew. Albert Mudrian, Deci- bel’s editor-in-chief, “was in our corner from the be- ginning and spotlighting it a little bit with Decibel. That felt unique,” says drum- mer Zach Coleman, whom many may know from TRVE Brewing. He also mans the kit for local black-metal oc- cultists Black Curse. “We had some people in the industry championing us. That was completely unex- pected for any of us. I didn’t really have any expectation for the record, so that was a big surprise.” “Yeah, that was a big deal for us,” Pender- gast adds. “I don’t think any of us ever would have thought that anyone would listen to the record, really. We just made it because we wanted to. I think that’s what’s special about it. It’s both us making a record for ourselves in the purest sense, and there’s a lot of really personal investment in it, and also it’s us just having fun, and the purest version of that.” All of a sudden, Khemmis found itself a fl agbearer of the 2010s doom resurgence, alongside such national acts as Pallbearer out of Arkansas, Virginia’s Windhand and Spirit Adrift, hailing from Arizona. And it has since established itself as a monolithic mainstay, following critically acclaimed sophomore follow-up Hunted, which landed at No. 11 on Rolling Stone’s twenty best metal albums of 2016 roundup (it took the top Decibel spot that year, too) and allowed the group to sign with Nuclear Blast, the label responsible for releasing the last two Khemmis records, Desolation (2018) and Deceiver (2021). But none of that would have happened if Absolution, which included former bassist Daniel Beiers, didn’t strike the right chord, or chords, at precisely the right time. For context, it was a perfect storm following the “rethrash” era of years prior, during a mo- ment when metal was looking for that next big thing. And Khemmis, this Colorado band with only a 2013 self-titled EP to its name before then, unknowingly obliged. “I don’t think it would have that effect for other people, and I don’t think it would have affected us the way that it did if we had gone in with any sort of expectation of, ‘Oh, we’ve landed on something here. We’re doing something that nobody sees com- ing,’” Hutcherson shares, while crediting the burgeoning local scene — in which peer alt-doom acts such as Primitive Man and In the Company of Serpents were coming up, too — for being a fertile proving ground. “We were literally just following the guideline that we still follow to this day, which is when we’re writing music, are we writing something that we want to listen to? If yes, then keep going. If no, then change it,” he continues. “The beautiful coincidence is what we wanted to listen to seemed to and continues to resonate with so many people.” Whether the Mile High musicians real- ized it or not, what Khemmis created on Absolution, recorded with legendary local producer Dave Otero (Cephalic Carnage, Cattle Decapitation), reinvigorated the subgenre and brought it to a new gen- eration of heshers. This melding of Saint Vitus-style stoner grooves, reinterpreted with a classic heavy metal twin attack à la Iron Maiden, and the interplay of clean and harsh vocals, switching seam- lessly between Pendergast’s epic highs to Hutcherson’s brutal lows, all wrapped up in Heavy Metal aesthetics, hadn’t before been executed with such melody and mal- ice, giving Khemmis its unique sound and trademark style. Hutcherson points to a late-night jam session that, looking back, included early licks of what would eventually fi nd their way into “The Bereaved” as the genesis of it all. “That was the song when Khemmis was born,” he says. “Phil and I jammed together in the basement of Black in Bluhm. We set out way too many amplifi ers; it was just the two of us, we turned up way too loud and we drank a case of beer. I remember through the haze of all that Coors Banquet, when we started noodling around and working out harmonies for stuff, some of it turned into ‘The Bereaved,’ but most of it was like, ‘What are you playing? Oh, yeah, that’s sick. Let’s drink a beer.’ That is such an integral moment in the evolution of the band.” “I remember really distinctly we thought of it as sounding like In Flames or At the Gates,” Pendergast recalls, “but nobody else probably would have heard it that way.” The foundation had been set, however, and the guitar consonance, particularly the doubled-up, chord-based riffs that Khemmis started employing on Absolution, serves a very important purpose. “The integration of guitar harmony is always about amplifying the emotion,” Hutcherson explains. “If it’s going to feel triumphant, it’s going to feel ten times as triumphant when you bring that second guitar in. If it’s heartbreaking, then it’s going to destroy you when you’ve got that harmony line coming in.” His longtime bandmates agree. “This idea of har- continued on page 16 Khemmis led a low-and-slow doom resurgence with its 2015 debut. MUSIC COURTESY BROCK MARLBOROUGH
