Nov 092023
 

A decade after their debut album, with a couple of EPs in between, the UK death metal band Plague Rider will see the release of their second album Intensities tomorrow, courtesy of our friends at Transcending Obscurity Records.

So close to its release, the album has already received a flood of reviews, all of them favorable so far as we can tell, and most of them striving to underscore just how unorthodox and unpredictable the album is, how devoted it is to turning listeners inside-out and upside-down.

Words like “twisted”, “challenging”, and “avant-garde” pop up, which are usually warning signs that you won’t be banging heads and humming tunes as you go, but you might already get that idea just from James Watts‘ impressionistic cover art and its interweaving of very dark and vivid colors.

Obviously you won’t have to wait long to hear all 7 tracks for yourselves, but we do have one more to premiere before the whole thing comes uncaged tomorrow. It’s the record’s penultimate gauntlet of madness, “Challenger’s Lecture“. Continue reading »

Apr 112016
 

Shadow Woods Metal Festival 2016

 

As we begin the new week, I have some unfortunate news (at least it’s unfortunate for me). Beginning today and continuing through Thursday morning, I have to bury myself in my fucking day job for one of those day-and-night projects that periodically descends upon me. I’ll make time to post what other writers have sent me, as well as a few premieres I’ve agreed to do, but aside from this round-up and one “Short But Sweet” review I wrote over the weekend, I will be missing in action until sometime Thursday.

Before saying good-bye, I’ve collected a few items that I wanted to share — including, at the end of this post, streams of ten recent videos without commentary (because I’ve run out of time for commentary).

SHADOW WOODS METAL FESTIVAL

I’m late sharing this news, but the news is so exciting that I’m following the “better late than never” mantra. Last year’s Shadow Woods Metal Festival was a marvelous event by all accounts — including this account by our guest Captain Karbon. As I reported in February, organizer Mary Spiro and her team (who are joined by Baltimore’s Grimoire Records as co-producers this year) have been planning the second installment of this open-air camping metal party, which will run for three days in central Maryland: from Thursday, September 15th through Sunday, September 18th at Camp Hidden Valley, in White Hall, Maryland. They’ve been announcing performers since January, and now the complete line-up has been revealed — and it’s an eye-popper: Continue reading »

Aug 262015
 

Plague Rider-paroxysm cover

 

Paroxysm is the name of the new EP by Plague Rider. The Oxford English Dictionary, which seems like the appropriate reference source since Plague Rider hail from the former mother ship, alternately defines “paroxysm” as “a sudden strong feeling or expression of an emotion that cannot be controlled” and “a sudden attack or violent expression of a particular emotion or activity”. With a name like that as an EP title, you don’t expect ambient drone. And as you’re about to find out, the EP lives up to its name.

You will find out, because today we’re premiering a full stream of all four songs on Paroxysm. Like the EP’s name, the song titles are also suggestive — “Retrovirus”, “Occidite”, “Hydrophobe”, and “Prion”, most of them referring to infectious, lethal agents. In a word, all the songs are remarkable (as well as lethal). Continue reading »

Jul 162015
 

Mordbrand-Rite split

 

I’ve spent so much time since last weekend writing my own reviews (which isn’t a weekly occurrence) and scribbling words to accompany premieres that I’m afraid I’ve fallen down on the job of rounding up new music to throw your way. Because the never-ending flood of new metal doesn’t pause for me, I’m now very far behind, with a list of new tracks that would stretch from here to that distant planet NASA finally caught on film this week.

Okay, that last part may have been a slight exaggeration, but it really is a long list. Rather than throw up my hands in despair, I decided to make a start and at least feature new songs from three bands this morning. They’re all really worth hearing.

MORDBRAND

I think I’ve written about every release that Sweden’s Mordbrand have ever delivered, and not just because the band’s name means “arson”. The main reason is because they’re all so very good. The latest offering is a song named “Order of the Formless”, which appears on a split with the band Rite that’s been expected for a long time and is finally being released this month by Doomentia Records. Continue reading »

Nov 162013
 

(TheMadIsraeli quickly reviews four new releases that deserve attention.)

Time for a round up of some shit that I’m sure some have missed or will miss when it comes out.

TYRANTS BLOOD 

We’ve mentioned Tyrants Blood (which includes former members of Blasphemyonce before on this site, and for good reason.  Their absolutely ravenous clusterfuck of all things brutal and fast is an always welcome treat.  The band’s new album Into the Kingdom of Graves is their most vicious and downright demonic sounding effort yet.  It’s hard to listen to things like the early Deicide records nowadays and think “this is some sinister shit” when bands like Tyrants Blood exist now. Continue reading »