Extreme metal project Onsetcold is back with a new album, Apocalyptic Sleep, set for release via Wormholedeath.
Onsetcold is the end of the beginning and the beginning of the end; a post apocalyptic extreme metal entity built to be the heaviest, most unhinged, and most unpredictable force possible. The name marks a fixed point in time: past the fire, past the point of return, where collapse is inevitable and volatility is the only constant. Across Art Destroyer, Death Blast (2020), and the full art detonation Noam Chomsky (2023), Onsetcold has treated albums like weapons tests—each one a different method of breaking the frame. The new record, Apocalyptic Sleep, is the most dangerous yet: ten movements that fuse black metal frost, death metal violence, symphonic black grandeur, avant garde sabotage, and phonk lit menace into a single unstable structure. Onsetcold thrives on disorientation: cathedral scale orchestration one moment, bass heavy cosmic street menace the next, then a sudden collapse into chaos. Apocalyptic Sleep is not a genre. It’s a place.
Apocalyptic Sleep is a chilling descent into themes of pain, survival, and the end of the world. The ten-track album takes listeners through a bleak, beautiful, and inescapable apocalypse. From the opening track, “The Blue Room,” which sets a tone of perpetual suffering, the album weaves a narrative of ancient prophecies, cosmic chaos, and personal damnation. It explores the blurred lines between love and destruction (“Standing in the Rain Beside You”), the slow decay under a dying star (“Under the Nuclear Sun”), and a fatalistic acceptance of ruin (“Sleep Tonight”). The journey intensifies with a demonic waltz with Lucifer himself (“Underworld”) and a violent, cult-like rebellion (“Cult”), before concluding with “Austere.” Ultimately, Apocalyptic Sleep is not a story of hope, but a visceral and honest look at the beauty and terror of a world in its final throes. The album has been mixed and mastered by Dan Mullins(My Dying Bride).
Line-up:
Shaq – Music/Vocals
Seiza Friedrich – Vocals
Apocalyptic Sleep Cover and Tracklist:
1 . The Blue Room
2 . The Oracle to Egypt
3 . Hurricane
4 . Standing in the Rain Beside You
5 . Under the Nuclear Sun
6 . Sleep Tonight
7 . Short Circuit
8 . Underworld
9 . Breathing in This Cult
10 . Austere
