With his second official full-length, "The Funeral of Being" (2003), Xasthur mastermind, multi-instrumentalist, and singer Scott Conner aka Malefic walked further down the harsh, raw, frightening, and yet also melancholic path that set his band apart from most of the US black metal scene. Despite it's unique and solitary approach, "The Funeral of Being" is still widely held to constitute a cornerstone and classic of the American underground. Xasthur were originally conceived by Scott Conner in California, USA in the year 1995. The project started out in the vein of bleak black metal in the tradition of the Nordic second wave. Over the course of nine albums and a host of split-singles, EPs, and occasional demos, Xasthur's individual, particularly depressive style became highly regarded within the extreme genre. In 2010, Scott announced the end of Xasthur and returned with an acoustic dark folk project under the banner of NOCTURNAL POISONING. In 2015, the American artist returned to the name Xasthur, but insisted that his black metal days were over. On his so far latest album, "Inevitably Dark", Xasthur have partly lifted the self-imposed ban on black metal, simply because Conner felt like it and therefore did it.