From Bandcamp, “Windows Drenched in Red” is the visceral debut from BLOOD BRAIN BARRIER—a conceptual dive into the psyche of a formless entity drifting between dimensions. Merging black metal, doom, sludge, ambient textures, and fractured melodies, the album reflects humanity’s violent imprint on unseen realms. Each track is a crimson-streaked window into cycles of suffering and the inevitable collapse of meaning. More than music, it’s a confrontation with the abstract and the void we create in pursuit of purpose.”

The album has four songs, and “Testing the Waters” is first. It’s a short blast of energy, sort of like a ball of dense material that they let loose on the world. The production is muted, giving the song that Black Metal sound, but there are other forces at work here as well, including some Thrash, Death, and Sludge. The title track brings even more filth to the table, almost like a meal covered in maggots. I like how the call the melodies “fractured,” because that is exactly what they sound like to me. The minute you think you are onto one, it retreats. Around the halfway mark, it slows, to utter desolation.

“Seek Nothing Destroy Everything” is a mantra for anarchy…maybe even humanity. It’s a nihilist (and realist) approach to letting people know that there is nothing out there waiting to be discovered, so stop wasting your time. The music is dreadful, harrowing, and dirty, and the riffs sound like they come deep from under the ground. “Desire to be Thoughtless” closes the album, and it’s another dreadful offering. Thick, disgusting bass notes thwack forth, carving out the bottom end, while the vocals and riffs keep things as filthy as possible. It crawls forward leaving a trail of inner bits behind.

Overall, the sheer amount of filth that this album will leave on the listener will not wash away without days of scrubbing, and it’s the kind of filth that leaves a stench behind that you can’t get rid of.