OUR LIST OF 2018’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 22): SULPHUR AEON AND WINDSWEPT

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2018  3 Responses »
Feb 062019
 

 

For this latest installment of the list I didn’t have any particular organizing principle that motivated the pairing of these two songs. Stylistically, they’re quite different, and so are the compositional strategies that resulted in each of them becoming so memorable and so personally addictive. I just felt it was time to give both of them the recognition they’re due.

SULPHUR AEON

Having already released such exceptional achievements as Swallowed By the Ocean’s Tide (2013) and Gateway To the Antisphere (2015), perhaps it wasn’t much of a risk that Sulphur Aeon‘s third album would be overlooked despite its release so close to the end of last year. Though it might not have been trumpeted through year-end lists prepared a month or two earlier, the band’s reputation had already become so revered as a result of those two previous releases that it didn’t require clairvoyance to know that word of The Scythe of Cosmic Chaos would spread far and wide by other means — especially because it is also a stupendously good album. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: WINDSWEPT, DOWNFALL OF GAIA, OAK, GOD DISEASE, INTO ORBIT, KRALLICE

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Jan 102019
 

 

Here are a few of the songs and videos that brightened and darkened my night. I encountered all of them in a rush of listening at full dark yesterday evening. Most of them appeared within the last 36 hours. If you’re like me, the flow of these songs will take you from a blazing high down into more cold and wretched depths, and then soaring again — and I’ll close with a stream of a new EP that was released by surprise last night.

WINDSWEPT

All three members of the Ukrainian band Windswept, including vocalist/guitarist Roman Sayenko, are also members of Drudkh, Precambrian, and Rattenfänger. Under the Windswept banner they released an excellent debut album in 2017 entitled The Great Cold Steppe (from which we hosted the premiere of a fiery song, “Shrouded In Pale Shining, So Sleeps Infinite Ancient Steppe”). Having been a fan of that album, it took about a nano-second for me to jump on the band’s new EP Visionaire when I discovered its existence last February, and (as explained here) found it to be powerfully moving as well.

Windswept now have a new album for us, which will be released by Season of Mist on February 8th. Its name is The Onlooker, and the first track in today’s collection is one released yesterday with the interesting title “Gustav Meyrink’s Prague“. (If you’d like to learn about Gustav Meyrink and of how his life changed in Prague, check this article.) Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 1): MIDNARTIIS, WINDSWEPT

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Feb 112018
 

 

Welcome to the regular Sunday edition of this column, which follows the irregular one I posted yesterday after failing to complete it earlier as planned. I’ve divided it into two parts because there’s quite a lot of music in today’s post, with six bands and four complete releases in addition to advance tracks from two others that are on the way.

On top of that, the first three of the complete releases include “long-form” songs. All of them are examples of emotionally powerful atmospheric black metal. But after those three I decided to make a sharp stylistic turn (actually, several sharp turns).

P.S.: I’m rarely cool, calm, and collected when writing about music; I only write about what I like and tend to let the words reflect the excitement… and I really like what you’re about to hear.

MIDNARTIIS

Two years ago I reviewed and premiered a wonderful album named Waves of Degradation by the Texas folk-influenced atmospheric black metal band Krigsgrav. It was the band’s fourth album but my first serious exposure to their music, and it was a hell of a discovery.

Krigsgrav are far along in their work on a new album, but their former bassist Wes Radvansky, who seems to have parted ways with the band since the last Krigsgrav album, has his own solo project, the name of which is Midnartiis. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: WINDSWEPT — “SHROUDED IN PALE SHINING, SO SLEEPS INFINITE ANCIENT STEPPE”

 Premieres  5 Responses »
Jan 312017
 

 

I’m in the camp of those who believe that any music crafted by the hand of Roman Sayenko will be worth checking out. Best known for his work in Drudkh for the last 15 years, he has also released powerful music under the banners of Blood of Kingu, Hate Forest, and Old Silver Key, among others. The latest Sayenko project is Windswept, in which he is joined by Drudkh’s rhythm section, V. and K. On March 31, Windswept’s debut album The Great Cold Steppe will be released by Season of Mist, and today we’re helping premiere another track from the album, “Shrouded In Pale Shining, So Sleeps Infinite Ancient Steppe“.

From the album’s title to the cover art to the names of the tracks, it’s obvious, as the label’s press reports confirm, that Windswept drew “inspiration from the harsh and unforgiving nature of the Eastern winter steppes”. But the music itself burns like a storm-driven blaze. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: PANOPTICON, WINDSWEPT, ILLIMITABLE DOLOR, PROJECT OMEGA, MURDERSOME, ROBOT ZOMBIE ARMY

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Jan 072017
 

 

I mentioned in yesterday’s Seen and Heard post that I’ve been under the weather and wasn’t sure if I would be posting much this weekend. I still feel like a piece of frozen shit that’s leaking rivulets of mucus, but I suppose it’s a testament to my obsession with metal that I’ve nevertheless compiled the following playlist of new songs for your enjoyment. I really enjoyed all of them as well, despite the best efforts of the cold virus to turn all my joy into slag.

PANOPTICON

A couple of days ago DECIBEL magazine premiered a stream of a new song by Panopticon that’s included as a flexi disc in the new issue of the magazine (the one with Immolation on the cover). The song’s name is “Sheep In Wolves’ Clothing”. It was specially recorded for the flexi series, so I’m not sure whether it will appear on Panopticon’s new album. And yes, if you hadn’t heard, there will be a new Panopticon album in 2017. Continue reading »