PREVIEW: soundcloud.com/slugwife/transcendent

Here at Slug HQ, we've been long time fans of AKOV, especially since his ridiculous drum work and overall groovy aggression on tunes such as “Shak Out” from back in 2018. So, with much pleasure and excitement, we welcome the bear himself to the viscous family with this absolutely stonking multi-genre destroying release “Transcendent”. Sit back and strap in for this ultimately banging release!

#slugwifeyforlifey

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↓↓↓ STORY TIME ↓↓↓

The rising tide of pollution and destruction was a daily reality across the planet. The slugs’ insistence on wanting everything and wanting it now was not sustainable to say the least. For the native fauna, livable environments were shrinking, and they had two choices - adapt or face inevitable death. Most were resigned to slow disintegration between discarded plastic bags, but a few keen predators managed to make their way through.

A small rural outpost had been reporting missing slugs for a little over a year now. It was usually a similar story – a municipal waste handler or vat technician would vanish whilst doing their final checks of the day. Well, maybe vanish isn't quite the right word since the violently dispersed bodily goo that remained left a pretty clear indication that they didn't go peacefully.

To date, nobody had managed to witness what happened. It either happened in an area not covered by security cameras, or in a zone where the cameras were non-functional. The local slugs were not particularly known for taking pride in their work or their property, so it's safe to say that was most of the site. They presumed it was something big and, since nobody came out alive, damn scary.

Gert had only just arrived in town, filling a surprisingly well-paid vat maintenance position. Those vats weren't going to clean themselves after all. Fortunately, most of her job involved checking the haphazard array of cleaning robots stayed on task, check temperatures were within safe levels and so on. So far people had been eerily friendly, not a quality usual to slugs, but she was a city slugger; maybe things were different out here?

Gert had reached the furthest out vat containment warehouse and was almost done with her rounds when she started to feel like she was being watched. It's always a bizarre feeling to reckon with. She initially chalked it up to being out late on her own, and her unfamiliarity with the environment, but she just couldn't shake the feeling. She scanned the darkness with her torch but couldn't see anything out of the ordinary.

She turned back to the operations screen, straining every sense to figure out if what she was feeling was real. She swore she could hear a guttural rumble in amongst the sound of bubbling vats and abysmally maintained industrial machinery. She could, she swore. It was getting louder! It took on a more...alive...timbre the more she listened, like an ancient beast waking from a long sleep. She almost couldn't bear to turn around.

The sound kept rising until she couldn't help but look. She spun around with her torch in one hand and her data tablet in the other, hoping she could fend off whatever was behind her. Needless to say, she could not; a gargantuan bear bore down on her from the darkness, ripping her head off with one snap of its jaws. As its weight bore down on her body, she burst like a grotesque water balloon, spraying the sorry assortment of internal organs and gunge up the side of the vat in a greasy stain some 8 meters high.

Clearly, she didn't make it out to tell the tale, and once again the bear stamped off into the darkness – its existence still shrouded in mystery. What makes it even stranger is that bears don't even eat slugs. Naturally, the company hired a new slug on Monday, who made it three weeks before meeting the same fate.