Apr 172018
 

 

I’m continuing today’s four-part round-up of new and newly underground sounds with two more selections — two bands widely separated in geographic terms but both very adept at putting a megawatt charge straight into your spine.

OXYGEN DESTROYER

I first encountered the music of Seattle’s Oxygen Destroyer early last fall, when their single “Vanquished by the Unrelenting Devastation of the Celestial Behemoth” sucked the air out of my lungs with the speed, ferocity, and obliterating power of its assault. As I reported then, they were at work on a debut album, and now it’s out, having been released on April 5th. Its title is Bestial Manifestations of Malevolence and Death, and it’s one hell of a rocket ride. Continue reading »

Aug 132017
 

 

 

Here’s the second part of a post I began (here) earlier today, collecting recent variants of black metal that I’ve been enjoying, and hope you will enjoy, too.

BESTIAL SIGHT

When You Need Metal​.​.​.​Go To Hell” has been a slogan used by the Hells Headbangers label for years, and it’s also the name of the next album I’ve chosen for this collection. It was released on July 21 by a band from Krasnodar, Russia, named Bestial Sight. It appears to be their first release. I was drawn into it by the cover art, which is fiendishly good (though I haven’t discovered the identity of the artist). Update: the cover art is by Alexey Sivitsky (Godlike ikons) Continue reading »

Aug 132017
 

 

I had an especially tough time deciding what to include in this collection. Yesterday I spent hours listening and re-listening to things I’d collected over the last week, and to even more music that others had recommended to me, and I still fell short of listening to everything on my list. From what I did hear, these songs seemed to go well together. By coincidence, I discovered almost all of them thanks to links from my Serbian acquaintance Miloš, who I think must listen to even more new music (and more obscure new music) than I do.

I’m dividing this post into two parts, the second of which will come later today. I’ll also mention that some noteworthy black metal splits have also come out this past week, or will come out soon. They’re not covered in this post because I hope to devote a separate column to them tomorrow.

CTULU

The hooded and masked German nihilists who have taken the name Ctulu released a self-titled album last year (their fourth full-length). The album didn’t include all the tracks they recorded at that time, and the band have taken some of those previously unreleased recordings and assembled them into a new EP named Cultus In Tenebris. “At the same time,” the band have explained, “Cultus in Tenebris is a concept EP trying to catch the spirit of Necronomicon rituals”: Continue reading »