Two of San Francisco’s most interesting underground bands, Botanist and Palace of Worms, are teaming up to release a split album via fellow San Franciscan experimental metal label The Flenser.  Featuring three tracks from each band that were mixed and mastered by Jack Shirley at The Atomic Garden, this six-song split album will be available on November 5 on digital and vinyl formats.
Formed in 2007, Palace of Worms is a one-man black metal band from the Bay Area, not unlike Leviathan and Crebian.  Frontman Balan plays all instruments: drums, guitar, bass and everything else in between.  Palace of Worms has released a demo, two full-lengths (2009’s The Forgotten and 2010’s Lifting the Veil) and a split with Mastery in 2012, and is gearing up for this year’s split release with Botanist as well as live performances in support of this split release.
Botanist is an unconventional one-man black metal band featuring vocals, drums, and hammered dulcimer instrumentation.  The songs of Botanist are told from the perspective of The Botanist, a crazed man of science who lives in self-imposed exile, as far away from Humanity and its crimes against Nature as possible. In his sanctuary of fantasy and wonder, which he calls the Verdant Realm, he surrounds himself with plants and flowers, finding solace in the company of the Natural world, and envisioning the destruction of man. There, seated upon his throne of Veltheimia, The Botanist awaits the day when humans will either die or kill each other off, which will allow plants to make the Earth green once again.