Colorado doom metal sorcerers KHEMMIS are taking over Rickshaw Theatre on June 19 with NECROFIER and WRETCHED! After eleven years of releasing albums and touring the world, Colorado’s Khemmis have become a pillar of the modern metal scene. Some artists strive for a legacy; Khemmis felt born with one. Upon releasing their 2015 debut Absolution, the Denver-based four-piece felt like old souls whose towering, spiritual doom metal connected with metalheads the world over. This was further cemented by 2016’s Hunted, which won the band international acclaim and was declared Album Of The Year by Decibel. 2018’s rollicking Desolation, 2020’s devotional Doomed Heavy Metal MLP (featuring a fan-favorite cover of Dio’s “Rainbow In the Dark”) and 2021’s searing Deceiver only reinforced the band’s monolithic sound and diehard following. NECROFIER are rewriting the rulebook in their own blood. Since 2018, the quartet has applied a spicy Texan intensity to the icy atmospheres of mid-’90s Norway, and Transcend Into Oblivion deploys their modus operandi with more power, conviction, and ingenuity than ever before. Here NECROFIER crafts a modern classic of the form, where tempestuous squalls of extremity are punctuated by sinister, melancholic, otherworldly melodies, twinkling in the gloom like will-o’-the-wisps on a black night. With Decay, the decade-long wait for new Wretched music is finally over, the dozen songs worth every moment of anticipation. The first LP since 2014’s Cannibal, Decay sees the boundary-pushing lineup breaking past defined walls of their four previous releases. “We’ve had a lot of time to grow and reflect in the time between our last album our Decay,” says drummer Marshall Wieczorek.“ Wretched is doing what Wretched always does, and that’s exploring our environment and leaving room for ourselves to try different things. To sum things up, the new album is DYNAMIC. We go here, we go there, we go everywhere. There is no shortage of groove, heaviness, speed, melodicism, prettiness, and sadness.” For the last two years, Charlotte, North Carolina’s lauded metal monsters worked on the songs that would populate Decay. The result is a conceptual masterpiece that blends haunting melodies with progressive complexity. This fifth album, which is a prequel to 2010’s Beyond the Gate, delves into existential themes, D&D-inspired mythology, and personal loss.