Feb 132022
 

 

What I’ve chosen for this week’s black metal column provides a good variety of music for heathen tastes (or at least I think it does). It includes reissues of some older EPs, a trio of recently revealed tracks from forthcoming albums, and one full-length that came out about 10 days ago.

RITUAL DEATH (Norway)

I remember hearing about this band, most likely through Karina Noctum‘s interview of T. Ciekals, though the focus of that interview was his band Djevel. But I didn’t follow up to see what Ritual Death was all about until noticing that the Russian label Living Temple Records had released tape and digital editions of two Ritual Death EPs on February 11th of this year. Continue reading »

Jan 242022
 

 

I hope you saw Part I of this column yesterday, because in my humble opinion it includes a lot of great charred music. The same is true of this second Part, even though it doesn’t involve quite as many musical twists and turns as the first one.

PURE WRATH (Indonesia)

This Indonesian black metal project has been a favorite of mine since discovering the first advance track from its debut album Ascetic Eventide back in 2016. Since then the band has moved from a local label (Hitam Kelam Records) to Pest Productions (for the second album) and then to Debemur Morti Productions, which released the 2020 EP The Forlorn Soldier and will soon release the band’s third album Hymn to the Woeful Hearts (which includes drumming by ex-White Ward drummer Yurii Kononov).

The second single from the new album, “Presages From A Restless Soul“, came out last week. I’d like to share the inspiration for the song as described by the band’s mastermind Januaryo Hardy: Continue reading »

Nov 192012
 

 

This is just a quick note to let you know that four albums are now streaming in full at various locations around the interhole. All four of them are definitely worth checking out.

INCANTATION

Incantation’s ninth album, Vanquish in Vengeance, will be released on November 27 by Listenable Records. It’s their first album since Primordial Domination was released in 2006. It was mixed and mastered Dan Swanö at Unisound. It sounds vicious. It’s streaming exclusively at DECIBEL’s online site, which you can find via this link.

HELL MILITIA

We featured these French marauders not long ago. Their new album, Jacob’s Ladder, is due for release on November 20 via Season of Mist. Today, Brooklyn Vegan began streaming the album in full.  It can be ordered here now. It’s really good. The SoundCloud player at Brooklyn vegan is also embeddable, and so you can check it out here right after the jump. Continue reading »

Nov 062012
 

This post is about as lame a post as any post I’ve ever posted, except for the post on Saturday that was actually entitled LAME. (My ankle is now black and blue, but improving, and thank you for asking). To be clear, this post is not lame because the music I’m recommending is lame. Far from it! It’s lame because I don’t have the time or the mental clarity to add much to the recommendations, such as an explanation.

My day job is imposing on me at the moment (and this will continue over the next two days), and to be brutally honest, I’m also experiencing some anxiety over the outcome of state and national elections. Between those two things, this is all I can manage at the moment:

BOSSE-DE-NAGE

A few weeks ago I reviewed a new split release by deafheaven and Bosse-De-Nage. Both of the two songs on the split are long — 10:37 and 9:02, respectively — and I expressed the opinion that together they made up one of the best short releases of 2012. When I wrote the review, only the deafheaven track was available for streaming. Now, so is the Bosse-De-Nage track.

The split will be released by The Flenser Records on November 20, both on vinyl and digitally. The vinyl can be pre-ordered from The Flenser here, and it’s also available at deafheaven’s store at this location. Watch The Flenser Facebook or Bandcamp pages for news about the digital release. The BDN song is streaming at Stereogum as well as on YouTube, and it’s right after the jump. Continue reading »