Occasional guest posts aside, Both Kinds of Heavy is a one-man operation. As such, there are limits to both what I'm able to cover, and what I'm willing to cover. I'm always going to favor advance reviews, because I want to help people learn about exciting upcoming music. And if it's a smaller band that doesn't have a huge marketing push, even better. Sometimes, however, I'll chose to cover an already-released album, as long as it interests me and could use a little more awareness. Additional bonus points awarded to bands that are, like this site, a one-person operation. All apply to the new Breaths album, Descent, which released digitally on August 7. 

Breaths is a the solo project of Jason Roberts, a musician based out of Richmond, Virginia. Since starting the project in 2021, Roberts has been prolific - Descent is the 13th release under the Breaths name. I remember coming across the first Breaths release, Lined in Silver, in a Facebook group and enjoying it, but admittedly I haven't kept up with his output. I may have to go back and correct that, because I quite like this most recent release as well. 

Roberts isn't just prolific, he's also ambitious. Descent is the perfect example - it is the first part of a two-album exploration of Dante's Inferno, and together the two albums will lead the listener on a journey into the lowest depths of Hell. Descent starts at the gates of Hell and voyages through the first five circles, leading up to the crossing of the River Styx into the City of Dis. You know, metal shit.

Sonically, there's much more happening on this album than just metal, though. If I had to put this album into a single category, I'd call it doomgaze, as shoegaze and doom metal elements share roughly equal time. But there's far more than just those two influences entwined in this album - post metal, sludge, post hardcore, and stoner rock all rear their sinful heads here. 

Roberts displays multiple different vocal styles throughout, including clean singing, blackened shrieks, and death metal growls. Often, multiple vocal styles are layered in a single time, and more than once while listening to Descent I had to stop and appreciate the fact that so much of its incredibly rich sound was ultimately coming from a single person. 

In addition to vocals, Roberts also performed the guitar, bass, and programming on the album, as well as mixing and mastering. Only one track, "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here," features another musician, guest drummer Kyle Lewis. How Roberts deploys his various vocal and musical styles depends on where you are in the journey down through the rings of Hell - the sonic landscape evolves the further down you descend. The opening track, the aforementioned "Abandon all hope," features Roberts' clean vocals prominently, with his blackened vocals backing up the latter half of the track, haunting it like a wraith. The second track, "Limbo," opens with a Windhand-esque riff and and a more equal split of clean and harsh vocals. The third track, "Lust" features blackened vocals right off the bat. Appropriately, the heaviness accumulates over the course of the downward journey, culminating in "Wrath," which delivers the heaviest doom punch and most blistering vocals on the album. 

I've listened to my fair share of one-man Bandcamp releases, and while I'll never badmouth anyone who displays such multi-faceted talents, oftentimes these releases sound a little thin or underproduced. Not so on Descent. This is a rich and full-sounding album, delivering equally on the shoegaze atmospherics and the metal crunch. I'm excited to go back and delve into the rest of the Breaths catalog. I'm more excited to hear what comes next. 

Descent by Breaths released digitally on August 7, 2026. Physical copies can be pre-ordered here.