SEEN AND HEARD: BONEHUNTER, HATE, HORRENDOUS, INFERNAL COIL, MESARTHIM, SOREPTION

 

This is obviously a big end-of-week round-up. Today the size of the round-up will be in inverse proportion to the volume of words in my descriptions of the music, because I have three premieres to write and there would have been more except I exercised some rare restraint and started saying No.

What is it about this day that makes it so popular for premieres and releases? Could it be that there is only one other Friday in 2018 like it (and that one occurred three months ago)?

I arranged the music in alphabetical order by band name because I couldn’t think of a more logical way to stitch these sounds together.

BONEHUNTER

This time Bonehunter chose to keep the rampaging bear’s penis less prominent on the magnificent cover of their new album (rendered by Joe Petagno), to the disappointment of some and the relief of others (as long as they don’t look to closely at that tongue). But how does the music on Children of the Atom compare to the tunes on this Finnish band’s more prominently erect last record, Sexual Panic Human Machine?

 

 

Well, based on the first advance track, “The Reek of Reaper’s Scythe“, it compares very well indeed. The devil is still alive and well and living large in Bonehunter‘s brand of metal/punk, and this rampaging track is home to some solid-gold riffing, along with unhinged vocal barbarism — and a solo at the 2:35 mark that’s just fucking GLORIOUS.

The Bandcamp page for Children of the Atom includes a release date of December 31, 2018, but I think that’s just a placeholder until the actual release date is determined.

(Thanks to Conchobar for alerting me to this new song. As he observed, it’s great, the “lack of bear peen notwithstanding”, though he apparently didn’t look closely enough.)

Bandcamp:
https://bonehuntermetal.bandcamp.com/album/children-of-the-atom

Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/bonehuntermetal/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

HATE

It seems that Hate are at least as excited as their fans about the prospect of recording a new album: Rather than waiting for a finished product, they’ve already released a pre-production version of a track called “Path To Arkhen“. The occasion for that stream was the announcement that Hate have signed to Metal Blade Records for the release of their next album. Vocalist/guitarist ATF Sinner says that “plans have already been laid down to enter the studio in December of this year, with a tentative release date for mid-2019.”

The prospect of a new Hate album is always welcome news at our putrid site, and this new track is a promising teaser. But what do you think of it?

Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/HATEOFFICIAL/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

HORRENDOUS

As we all know, metalheads can be a contrary, ornery bunch, and tremendous “popular” success can sometimes provoke an almost instinctive antagonism among at least certain segments of fandom. At least as I perceived things, that’s kind of what happened with this Philadelphia band’s 2015 album, Anareta.

It popped up on so many year-end lists, including lists published by “big platform” and cross-genre sites (as well as smaller, more metal-centric ones) that I started referring to it as one of “the usual suspects” in our 2015 LISTMANIA series. It got so much praise and recognition that it seemed to provoke a bit of backlash from the irascible types out there, who just had to grumble that it wasn’t as good as everyone else was saying it was.

But really, it really was very, very good. And the band’s new album Idol (which features cover art by Brian Smith) will no doubt be eagerly anticipated, far and wide. The run-up to its September 28 release by Season of Mist began a couple of days ago with DECIBEL‘s premiere of a track named “Soothsayer“, along with the band’s 261-word description/explanation of the song, which you might want to go read here. Or you might just want to listen to the song.

Pre-order:
https://shopusa.season-of-mist.com/list/horrendous-idol

Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/HorrendousDeathMetal/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

INFERNAL COIL

Boise-based Infernal Coil are finally going to release a debut album after two frighteningly good EPs, and none other than Profound Lore is going to release it on September 14th. The album’s name is Within A World Forgotten, and it features artwork by the great Adam Burke.

The track below, which debuted yesterday, is “Crusher of the Seed“. “Brutal, unrelenting, transcendental ashen death metal” is the way PL describes the music on the album, and it certainly suits this particular song, whose roiling, gruesomely distorted riffs and vivid, head-hammering drumwork combine with horrific roaring vocals and strains of cold, cruel, otherworldly melody to generate an atmosphere of chaos conjoined with terrifying grandeur.

Or to put it more succinctly, this is a four-minute shock-and-awe campaign that left me breathless.

Pre-order:
https://infernalcoil.bandcamp.com/album/within-a-world-forgotten
https://profoundlorerecords.merchtable.com/

Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/infernalcoil/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MESARTHIM

For a band as prolific as Australia’s Mesarthim, they seem incapable of making a mis-step. Following their habit of springing releases on their fans without warning, yesterday they released a single-song EP named Coma Wall that’s just glorious.

They set the hook early with what could pass for banjo-picking, and then layer on top of that repeating motif a deep pulsating rhythm, cascading waves of synthesizer ambience, beautifully exotic flute-like melody, and shattering vocal shrieking. From there the music glides softly out into the cosmos, propelled by a twitchy electro-rhythm. When the energy surges again, a darting, gleaming keyboard melody flickers through storms of sweeping grandeur and punishing force. And the concluding segment sends you off in dreamlike fashion.

To borrow from Little Big Man, my heart soars like a hawk when listening to this. Throughout many of these 16 1/2 wonderful minutes, you could dance to it, too.

Bandcamp:
https://mesarthim.bandcamp.com/album/coma-wall-e-p

Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/mesarthim.official/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SOREPTION

Soreption‘s new album Monument of the End will be out on August 3rd via Sumerian. A couple days ago we got another track from the album, “Children of the Automaton“, packaged with a music video directed by Igor Omodei that’s loads of fun to watch. As for the music, prepare to have your brain teleported into a blender set to puree, or into an unstable centrifuge that’s whipping around while affixed to a rocket-propelled roller coaster. Machine-precise, turn-on-a-dime, highly destabilizing decimation… that’s what you get here.

Pre-order:
http://soreption.net

Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/soreption/