Feb 242015
 

 

In January we came across a musical teaser clip for a forthcoming album entitled Innerstanding by a Cypriot band named Tome of the Unreplenished, and featured it (here) without much commentary in a round-up of new discoveries. Since then we’ve had the chance to explore the album, and today we bring you the premiere of a full song, a work named “Take Me To the Stars”.

The sole member of this band, who calls himself Hermes, was at one time affiliated with the satanic black metal band Necrosadist (and the new album was mixed by Necrosadist’s A. Dictator), but Innerstanding is not an assault of raw black metal. Though it still makes use of black metal elements, it has different goals and follows different pathways, more a work of personal catharsis and experimentation than a re-treading of old, unhallowed ground. As the album’s title suggests, it is an exploration of one man’s inner self as well as a conception of an individual’s place in the immensity of the cosmos. Yet the music is also open to interpretation by the listener, the kind of sounds that inspire imaginings which will vary from person to person. Continue reading »

Feb 242015
 

 

On April 20, Season of Mist will release the first new album by Ukrainian black metal band Drudkh since 2012’s Eternal Turn of the Wheel. The name of the new album is A Furrow Cut Short, and today we have the pleasure of bringing you its first advance track — “Till Foreign Ground Shall Cover Eyes”.

The music races, but within the vibrating whirl of guitars and the bolting rhythms, huge waves of dramatic melody move like tides, slow and powerful. The pulsating bass notes, rapid-fire drum munitions, and wild, predatory howls get the blood pumping, but the non-stop intensity of the auditory assault only enhances the passion and staying power of the fiery, tremolo-driven melody. It’s an exhilarating cascade of black metal potency, both ferocious in the moment and memorable in the aftermath. Continue reading »

Feb 242015
 

 

It has always been
It has come to this
Family mansion for this life
Family tomb for the next
 

Shroud of Despondency have done it to me again. Last November, not knowing much about the band, I decided to devote just a few minutes to their new EP, Defective Overpass, just to see what it was like. And the music promptly shoved all my other plans over the side and wouldn’t let me alone until I had gotten my thoughts about it up on this site.

I found out yesterday that the band’s final album, Family Tomb, is now available on Bandcamp. I thought I was better prepared this time, having heard the EP. But I wasn’t. And here I am again, unable to do anything else I had planned to do until I’ve spilled my thoughts all over this page.

I haven’t listened to the album as much as I should, and I haven’t spent as much time writing this review as I should — but I have to tell you about this album, and I need to do it now. Continue reading »

Feb 232015
 

 

Australia’s Rise of Avernus are following up their 2013 debut album L’appel du vide with a new EP entitled Dramatis Personæ. It’s a five-track, half-hour affair that includes a guest vocal appearance by Enslaved’s Grutle Kjellson (on the song “Acta Est Fabula”) — and today we bring you a stream of the EP’s penultimate song, “An Alarum of Fate“.

The booming drums and darting orchestral strings that start the song provide immediate elements of intrigue, and they are strong attractions to the music throughout. But they’re not the only attractions. Take the vocals, for example: They’re an appealing blend of flesh-scarring growls, skyward-soaring clean vocals, and ghostly whispers. And just as appealing is the music’s integration of heavy riffs, hammering beats, mesmerizing piano notes, warm bass tones, and dreamlike strings. Continue reading »

Feb 232015
 

 

In mid-December of last year the Obama Administration announced an array of changes in U.S. governmental policies affecting relationships with Cuba (summarized here), including the re-establishment of diplomatic relations, easing of travel restrictions, and permitting certain kinds of import-export trade. Putting aside all the political hot air about the decision that has been vented in the U.S. since then, there’s no doubt it will be the start of dramatic changes inside Cuba itself.

Those changes were inevitable, it was just a question of when. Some observers are adamant that the effects will be negative, some are equally adamant they will be positive. They will probably be both good and bad. Continue reading »

Feb 232015
 

 

(Our Russian contributor Comrade Aleks returns with this interview of Christian Draghi, vocalist/guitarist of Italy’s Doctor Cyclops.)

Take the map of Italy and find the small town Vaghera in Lombardy. Do you see it? It’s there in the North… Yes, that’s right. It’s a place where the Maserati Brothers were born, four gentlemen who created what has become one of the world’s best luxury sports cars for a long time. But today this place is more interesting for us because of Doctor Cyclops; they’re a trio who have been playing pretty original retro doom rock since 2007. Their songs have a unique Italian touch – some prog elements, something from the atmosphere of Argento movies, and something elusive and really fresh. And they are not as simple as one might think.

I had this interview with Christian Draghi (guitars, vocals), and we discussed their two albums Borgofondo and Oscuropasso. After that I have even more respect for the band. So here he comes – Doctor Cyclops. Continue reading »

Feb 232015
 

 

On January 3 of this year I saw the remarkable artwork you’re now looking at, a piece named “The Cold Steps To Solitude” by the Australian artist Chris Cold that was then destined to appear as the cover of an album by a band from Perth named Wardaemonic. I remember the date because I wasted no time in posting it on our site’s Facebook page. And I thought to myself, if the music turns out to be as good as the art, the album is going to be an eye-opener, too.

The name of the album is Obsequium, it’s due for release on March 13, and we have the pleasure of premiering its first advance track, “Endless War”.

That’s a fitting title for this song, because it’s a full-force black metal blitzkrieg of blasting drums, storming tremolo riffs, and razor-edged shrieks. The boiling conflagration is punctuated by bursts of dual-guitar jabbing and it subsides in the closing minutes to make room for a slow, sinuous passage of atmospheric melody, moving like poison fog across the blasted battlefield. Continue reading »

Feb 232015
 


photo by Jorge Silva (Reuters)

 

Welcome to a new edition of THAT’S METAL!, the second one of 2015. I’ve let more than six weeks go by since the year’s first installment, but I’m looking on the bright side — at least I got another one finished before the Ides of March.

As always, the focus of this series is on images, videos, and news items that I think are metal, even though they’re not metal music. I have 10 items for you today.

ITEM ONE

“Tattoo, skin implant and body piercing fans from around the world have gathered in Caracas for a four-day event celebrating extreme body modification at the Venezuela Tattoo Expo. Visitors to the show displayed extreme piercings, tattoos, skin and teeth implants and even dye injected into eye-balls.” That was the lead in a photo display at The Telegraph (UK) about the expo in Caracas last month.

First up in the photo gallery, not surprisingly, was Maria Jose Cristerna from Mexico, aka “Vampire Woman“. She holds the Guinness World Record for being the woman with the most body mods.

Those of you with keen memories may remember that I wrote about her once before in a THAT’S METAL! post (here), almost exactly two years ago. At that time (and maybe today as well) her day job was practicing law, which is kind of inspirational. Here are two more photos from the Venezuela Tattoo Expo: Continue reading »

Feb 222015
 

 

Happy goddamn Sunday to one and all. I’m working on a THAT’S METAL! post this morning. It’s going to take me about an hour and a half to finish it. So I thought I’d leave a musical interlude for you before I resume toiling away on that other piece (which I may post tomorrow if not today). As the tag says, what follows truly is random fucking music — these are the last seven songs I listened to last night and this morning, presented in alphabetical order by band name. They’re all new, they’re all good.

ENDLESSHADE

KevinP tagged me (and about 100 other people) on a Facebook link to two songs by this Ukrainian doom/death band. Both songs are drawn from the band’s forthcoming debut album, Wolf Will Swallow the Sun, which will be released by Naturmacht Productions on February 22 (and can be ordered here). The first track is “Post Mortem” and the second is “Edge”.

These are long songs, in the eight-to-nine minute range. They create an atmosphere that’s both ethereal and crushing, both mystical and tangibly powerful, hypnotic and harrowing. The forlorn, keyboard-enhanced melodies are sweeping and memorable, while the riffs are titanic. The harsh vocals are gargantuan and vividly impassioned; the clean vocals are sombre and sorrowful — and both are impeccably performed by a woman (Natalia Androsova). Truly compelling music… Continue reading »

Feb 212015
 

 

(An old subject, and probably not much new to say about it. I get like this when I’ve had too much to drink. At least there’s some good metal at the end.)

We’re not an overtly political site. I emphasize the word “overtly”, because if you’ve been paying attention, you can probably figure out that we have our views, and they influence what we write and what we write about.

But it’s not the result of any kind of editorial edict. We all write what we want to write about. There are no assignments here, there are no litmus tests. Maybe that’s a strength, maybe that’s a weakness. But somehow, I think we do have a basic world view, one that all the writers subscribe to. It’s a minimalist communion, because we are far from clones of each other. The only communion is the worship of art. Our goddess is The Muse, our god is Pan. Except, those are metaphors — we have no god in what we do here, we praise the achievement of human inspiration and talent.

Up to a point. For many music fans it’s impossible to separate the creator from the creation. And to varying degrees, we have trouble doing that, too. Ninety-nine percent of the time, it’s not an issue — 99% of the time we don’t really know what bands believe, and 99% of the time their music isn’t dedicated to any controversial philosophies. Resistance to authority, rebellion against the imposition of structure by people who mean nothing to you, revulsion against religious dogma — those really aren’t radical views, and they’re increasingly less marginal, even in society as a whole. That view of the world might be a revelation to 18-year-old’s, but it’s old hat to most 40-year-old’s. It means very little in judgments about the quality of metal. Continue reading »