Panopticon

About

Austin Lunn started Panopticon as a one man project in Louisville, Kentucky, writing every song and playing every instrument himself, and that solo approach in the studio has never really changed. What makes Panopticon stand out in the black metal world is how naturally Lunn weaves in bluegrass, Appalachian folk, and Americana, using banjo, fiddle, and acoustic guitar alongside the expected blast beats and tremolo riffs. His lyrics are equally distinctive, drawing on environmentalist philosophy, anarchist politics, and hyper specific subjects like the coal industry's grip on Kentucky or blue collar labor policy. The 2012 album Kentucky put Panopticon on the map, but the run of records since then has only deepened the project's reputation. The 2018 double album The Scars of Man on the Once Nameless Wilderness folded country and folk into the black metal framework, while the 2021 album...And Again into the Light landed at number five on Decibel's best albums of the year list and tenth on Rolling Stone's best metal albums of 2021. The 2023 record The Rime of Memory continued that creative momentum, and recent uploads suggest Lunn is still very much at work.