Everyone, I'm very sorry to announce I have some bad news. The kings of sludge brutality have recently decided to step down from the throne. As of September 24, 2006, Khanate — composed of members Alan Dubin, Stephen O'Malley, James Plotkin, and Tim Wyskida — are no more. According to Blabbermouth.net, Plotkin announced that "due to the lack of commitment of certain members" he no longer wants to continue playing. Apparently, "some players are more concerned with personal careers and day jobs rather than the advancement of music as an artform (sic)." Now, I have a lot of respect for people who can balance a day job with a pretty significant career as an artist, but if I ever had to work alongside a member of Khanate, regardless of how they looked, I would be terrified. It's a shame that they couldn't work out some sort of system for the band equivalent to the mullet. So instead of "party" in the back, it would be "make insanely long, grating songs and promote the arts" randomly throughout the mane of life (but still in significant chunks).
Known for their extreme style of doom metal with drawn-out songs that slowly pummeled from the inside, Khanate will be sorely missed among the metal crowd. James Plotkin plans on continuing performing and creating new music with bandmate Tim Wyskida, and of course Stephen O'Malley will forever deafen ears with the delightful sounds of Sunn 0))). There will be two last Kleenexes of metal (ouch!) to wipe the remaining tears off of the faces of die-hard fans: the companion album to Capture and Release and a bonus disc of a reissue of their self-titled album in Japan, which will contain previously unreleased material. All of the fan-boys on the Southern Lord forums with their avatars of scantily-clad Asian women were weeping into their keyboards this week, but luckily the members with avatars of shocking, fucked-up shit reminded them that the band members will most likely all go on to create more music in a crazy hydra-effect that will forever immortalize Khanate. Thank god for doom metal.
