Panopticon - Kentucky

2017 release. With Panopticon's fifth full-length album, Kentucky, Austin Lunn pushed the boundaries and blurred the lines between melodic US black metal and folk driven Americana. Bluegrass, with it's high and lonesome sound and cultural and emotional significance, provided the perfect backdrop for Austin's lyrical exploration of the Kentucky's rich cultural heritage and unique environment as well as coal miner's plight to stand up against the cruelty of a greed driven fossil fuel industry as they struggled to organize a union to fight against horrific working conditions. The album is about more than just coal mining history... it is a love letter to the "bluegrass state" and the beautiful people and places contained within it's borders.