Arüspex – Hawthorne & Henbane

Search for “Aruspex” and you’re likely to come across an early 2000s Florida black/death metal band, yet the Arüspex in this review is a Northern California blackened crust quintet who self-released their debut full-length, Hawthorne & Henbane, in August 2023 before Fiadh Productions stepped in for a tape reissue in February 2024.

The band name is a reference to haruspex, a priest in ancient Rome who practiced divination by examining the entrails of sacrificed animals, while the album title is also fitting for a band interested in the dualities of nature and the occult. In folklore, the hawthorn symbolizes protection and healing, while henbane is a poisonous plant associated with hallucinogenic properties and sorcery. Symbolically, these witches’ plants set the tone for an intense record that oscillates between bitter clarity and dissociative pain.

Across eight songs, roughly thirty minutes in length, Arüspex confront systemic cruelty, depicting addiction, death, oppression, and shame as the natural harvest of political and social atrocities. People often file the band under the neocrust umbrella, and it is hard to miss the fingerprints of His Hero Is Gone and Tragedy, yet a visceral streak of black metal pushes them closer to the blackened crust label. The songwriting is really varied and interesting. The vocals alternate between deep, guttural growls and scorched ’90s crust shrieks in the lineage of Nausea, Detestation, etc., and the spoken word at the beginning of “Tombs” brings classic anarcho-punk vibes; guitars shift from cavernous tremolo to hook-laden leads; the rhythm section pivots from harrowing crustcore propulsion to more expansive, sludgy passages. The production feels intentionally rough, almost like a raw black metal record, but sharp enough to reveal layering and careful dynamics.

Hawthorne & Henbane comes as a crusty grimoire of grief and defiance with no promise of easy catharsis. Arüspex stare directly into every wound, name its source, and sometimes, whisper a blackened curse. Good news is the band is already working on a new EP to be released later in 2025, and one song is already streaming, suggesting that the next chapter will push their sound even further.