“The typical pitfall of pseudo-experimental metal bands is their tendency towards buffoonish self-aggrandizement and the accompanying insistence on pompous philosophical themes. Often drawing inspiration from edgy, coincidentally anti-humanistic philosophies and providing a “thinking man’s take” on black metal, they immerse themselves in childish interpretations of nihilism and neoreactionary doctrines. The similarly arty and bombastically theatrical Potmos Hetoimos, the long-standing one-man progressive sludge project of Baltimorean Matt Matheson, is an antipode of such acts.” Humanistic is as humanism does.