AN NCS PREMIERE: CEREMONIAL CASTINGS — “DESECRATION OF GRACE”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Jan 312022
 

 

2021 brought the 25th anniversary of Ceremonial Castings, the passing of a quarter-century career during which the band produced nine full-length albums and a slew of demos, EPs, and splits. The two brothers who joined forces in this endeavor — Jake and Nick Superchi — decided to commemorate the anniversary in extravagant fashion, by re-recording 18 of their classic songs, as well as two completely new and previously unreleased instrumentals by Nick Superchi, and to release the material in the form of a double album.

The name of that album (and suitably so) is Our Journey Through Forever. It will see the bold light of day on February 25th via the Eisenwald label, and to help spread the word we are today presenting a stream of one of the re-recorded tracks, “Desecration of Grace” (which originally appeared on 2005’s Immortal Black Art). Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 2): IGNIS GEHENNA, CEREMONIAL CASTINGS, VALRAVN, WŸNTËR ÄRVŃ

 SHADES OF BLACK  2 Responses »
Oct 112020
 

 

I don’t have much to say by way of introduction here, other than to urge you to listen to the music in Part 1 of today’s column if you haven’t, in addition to the fine new sounds I’ve chosen for this Part.

IGNIS GEHENNA (Australia)

“Sulphur Pit” was first released by this Tasmanian band as part of its 2008 debut demo Ecclesia Diabolus. But the song has been “re-imagined and re-written” for Ignis Gehenna‘s new album Rites of Transvaluation (which is the successor to 2017’s Baleful Scarlet Star) and in fact iit’s the song that opens the new record.

I haven’t heard the earlier version of “Sulphur Pit”, and so I’ve taken this new version just as it comes. It’s quite a striking experience. At more than eight minutes in length, it has room to change and explore. An aura of ritual emanates from the opening ambient tones, but the music becomes a flame-like ecstasy of rippling chords, climbing the scale and descending. In the midst of those quasi-deranged manifestations there are outbursts of ravishing savagery (the teeth-bared roars are always savage), and the music also conveys a kind of poisonous and bombastic grandeur, as well as melodies both bleak and baleful. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: CEREMONIAL CASTINGS, MARTYRDÖD, MUTILATION RITES, ONI, THROES

 Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  9 Responses »
Jul 022014
 

Collected here are four new songs and one teaser reel of new music from five bands that I heard over the last 24 hours and believe are worth throwing at your head like a nail bomb. I present the music in alphabetical order by band name.

CEREMONIAL CASTINGS

Go ahead, click that image above to enlarge it. I’ll wait.

Pretty fuckin’ cool, isn’t it? It’s the creation of Belgian artist Kris Verwimp and it graces the cover of a new album entitled Cthulhu by Ceremonial Castings. Cthulhu will be this Washington State duo’s eighth album and it’s due for release on July 8. Based on descriptions on the band’s Facebook page, it will be a monumental concept album spanning 2 CDs, the first consisting of 11 tracks divided into three chapters, with a total run-time of more than 70 minutes, and the second consisting of a single 61-minute work entitled “Cthulhu Unbound”. Continue reading »