We’re going to be a little light on content today because your humble editor will soon be embarking on a drive with his spouse to Vancouver, BC, where we will then engage in various entertaining activities that do not include blogging. I do have one very unusual premiere to bring you a bit later this morning, one guest review, and this round-up of items that tunneled their way into my head yesterday and left its meager contents in a state of satisfying disarray.

SARTEGOS

The ghastly words sound as if they’re bubbling up through a lava pool in a caldera, the air rendered opaque with the suffocating stench of sulphur. Primitive occult riffs vibrate with unholy energy. The muffled thump of drums roll like an avalanche of skulls hitting a barren plain. A twisted guitar melody echoes like the recital of a satanic liturgy across the vault of a hellish cathedral. And damned if the thing won’t hook you right through the gills. That’s “Meianoite No Jardim De Deus”, a song by Sartegos.

Sartegos are one of the few metal bands I’ve ever heard of who make their home in Galicia, an autonomous community in northwest Spain with its own language. In English, the song I heard means “Midnight in God’s Garden”, and it’s as dark as the name sounds. It appears on a 2013 EP entitled As Fontes Do Negrume (“The Origin Of Darkness”) that was recently released on CD by Bloody Productions and is about to get a vinyl treatment by I, Voidhanger Records.  Continue reading »