It's rare that a band truly leads by example, particularly in metal, where stylistic and genre parameters are strictly patrolled. The New York City avant-doom quartet Khanate, though, followed its own path from 2001 to 2006, combining a crushing musical and spiritual heaviness with a mastery of silence that created and sustained suspense without any of metal's usual horror-movie theatricality. - The Village Voice

If your standards of musical beauty are confined to things like melodies, beats, tracks that are less than 10 minutes long and lyrics that aren't about sharp objects and their application to human flesh, bone, and other tissues, KHANATE indeed is ugly. And if the molten-aluminum sheets of feedback and magma waves of minorseventh power chords aren't dark enough for you, KHANATE's poor vocalist shrieks like he's being sacrificed, a centimeter at a time, to some particularly grim, bloodthirsty power. - EQ Magazine

Dubin and company aren't aiming for easiness, but they offer patient listeners the chance to burrow into a seductive cocoon, into a sound as chilling and ominous as a pool of black icebergs. After a healthy brainstorm-- The Cure and Current 93's ouevres included-- I can't think of a three-minute pop song offering a similar effect. - Pitchfork Media

Clean Hands Go Foul represents the final nail in the KHANATE coffin, and a more fitting ending could not have been devised. Having left hordes of imitators in their wake there is and will only ever be one KHANATE.

Below are excerpts from our initial comments to the band after finally hearing the completed mixes: "...I can safely say that it is some of, if not your most interesting material and certainly telepathic in it's cohesion... ...While I've always enjoyed the oppressive nature of past KHANATE output, as well as it's generally forceful approach, the delicacy, restraint, and implied, rather than overt horror and violence inherent in the recording is tremendous... ...I'm a sucker for tragic music as you well know, and this air of tragedy in the tracks is quite a satisfying new element that's been injected into the mix - apparent in the first two tracks especially. It seems the emotional current in past KHANATE recordings really only went from hate to anger to overt violence, but this stuff has almost a resigned and tender sadness to it - really resonates with me in a way that I hadn't expected. The last track is nice too - lots of tension, but no easy cathartic release is given... ...There's a crescendo, but it's short lived and leaves the you feeling more tense rather than relieved. A nice closer for the band as well as the album..."

* Clean Hands Go Foul has been made available on black, gold, and vanilla bean swirl vinyl starting NOW through BlueCollarDistro.com and upon its release, the initial 1000 copies of the CD edition will include the limited DVD release "End: Capture & Release Live DVD"...but more on that later... In the meantime, check out Phil Freeman's amazing Khanate retrospective in New York's Village Voice newspaper.


Each swipe of the guitar, pound of the drum, and pluck of the bass is offered up individually, left to burn slowly as the band plots a sparse course throughout the span of their lengthy tracks to assemble all of these sounds into one massive fist that slowly (but insistently) sets about punching the listener in that gray matter that exists in between the ears. - Dusted