2018’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 18): MORGENGRAU, ABYSSUS, SUPREME CARNAGE, FERVENT HATE

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2018  1 Response »
Jan 312019
 

 

Don’t worry, I’m not going to make a habit of jamming four songs together in these installments of the list (tomorrow, there will only be two more). But I was convinced that putting these four tracks together was exactly the right thing to do. Apart from being infectious (duh), they’re all lethal forms of death metal savagery, with spectacular soloing, excitingly malignant vocals, head-cracking rhythms, and killer riffs discharged through a certain kind of chainsawing guitar tone that many of us lap up with glee.

Not coincidentally, I wrote about all of them when they first appeared, and even premiered three of them, so this gives me plenty of chances to quote myself, which is always a real pleasure.

MORGENGRAU

Nick Keller created the album art for the new second full-length by the Austin-based death metal band Morgengrau — and he did his usual spectacular job. Only part of his creation is shown above. More is visible here: Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): SAMMAS’ EQUINOX — “PILGRIMAGE / BOAHJENÁSTI”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Jan 312019
 

 

On February 1st — tomorrow — Signal Rex will release a compilation of the two demo tapes previously released by the Finnish black metal project Sammas’ Equinox. This new edition, which combines the names of the demos — Pilgrimage / Boahjenásti — includes remastered sound courtesy of Moonsorrow’s Henri Sorvali, and has been captured on CD and vinyl LP formats, with artwork and layout by Álex Tedín at Heresie Graphics.

Today we’ve got a full stream of the compilation, beginning with the four tracks from Pilgrimage (2016) and concluding with the three from Boahjenásti (2017). If you’ve not previously encountered these creations, prepare for an unusual and arresting combination of haunting, horrifying, and hallucinatory atmosphere, primal physical thrust, and affecting strands of melody, with the excursions overlaid by a voice that’s nasty as hell. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: AORATOS — “THRESHER”

 Premieres  7 Responses »
Jan 312019
 

 

In my humble opinion, no other domain of deeply underground music channels the madness of spiritual devotion, the intensity of unconstrained zealotry, the casting off of self-advancing calculation, as well as black metal. And few other genres so powerfully capture our most deep-seated terrors or so vividly give form to unseen spirits.

Many bands try to channel manifestations of stellar burning chaos through the fashioning of simulacrums — creating reasonable facsimiles of the real thing, but straining too hard to manufacture the explosion of blood and mind that’s the hallmark of authentic blinding fervor and fear. Needless to say, finding music that combines such genuine blast-furnace intensity with mindfulness about details — which channels extravagant emotional inspiration and reaches with straining sinews for the divine, yet reflects a demanding meticulousness about nuances of sound — is a rarity.

But here we have that rarity, in God Without Name, the first album by Aoratos. The emotional effect of the music is astonishing, though at the same time that effect is no surprise at all given the people whose talents are behind the name Aoratos, which means unseen. Continue reading »

THE SYNN REPORT (PART 105): SAOR

 Album Reviews, THE SYNN REPORT  1 Response »
Jan 312019
 

 

(The January 2019 edition of THE SYNN REPORT is devoted to the releases of the Scottish band Saor, and includes Andy Synn‘s review of Saor’s newest album, Forgotten Paths, which will be released on February 15th by Avantgarde Music.)

Recommended for fans of: Panopticon, Alcest, Dawn Ray’d

There’s been a lot of discussion recently – much of it intriguing, much of it ignorant – about what Black Metal “should” or “shouldn’t” be.

And while the whole issue, and all its many facets and factors, is far too complex for me to address here, the various conversations and arguments I’ve had with people – some like-minded, some less so – have helped crystallise in my mind that the most important thing any Black Metal artist needs… is passion.

Case in point, Saor (the solo project of one Andy Marshall) is absolutely brimming with passion and primal vitality, and each of the band’s albums (the fourth of which will be released within the next few weeks) marries energy and emotion, atmosphere and artistry, in a way that clearly comes right from the heart. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2018’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 17): BORN TO MURDER THE WORLD AND ANAAL NATHRAKH

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2018  3 Responses »
Jan 302019
 

 

I may have made a mistake with this 17th installment of my expanding list of infectious songs — not in the choice of the two tracks, because I do find them damned infectious, but in the decisions to pair them in a single place instead of dispersing them among different Parts of the list. Because, as you’ll see, they seem like fraternal twins — closely related though not monozygotic (there, maybe some of you just discovered a new word). The two tracks do share a parent (Mick Kenney), which may have something to do with the sonic kinship.

By the way, we’re now 42 tracks into this list, and based on past experience we’re more than halfway through. I will continue doing this through the impending end of this month and at least a couple weeks into February. If you’re one of those ornery types who thinks the list is already excessive, that’s tough, because I don’t care and you can’t stop me. If you want to check out the preceding 40 songs, they’re collected here.

BORN TO MURDER THE WORLD

My pal DGR was a big backer of this band (and I do mean BIG) from the moment when he first heard of its existence (“a band made just for me”). Born To Murder The World was started by Shane Embury (Napalm Death, Brujeria, etc.) and the afore-mentioned Mick Kenney (Anaal Nathrakh/Mistress), joined by vocalist Duncan Wilkins (Fukpig, Mistress), and their debut output, The Infinite Mirror Of Millennial Narcissism (ouch!) was released last August. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): GRAVES — “LITURGIA DA BLASFEMIA”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  2 Responses »
Jan 302019
 

 

There’s a coiled serpent on the cover of Graves‘ new album Liturgia da Blasfemia, but these Portuguese black metallers have harnessed a lot of powerful demon horses in their hard-charging sounds, as well as demonstrating fanged striking power and loosing currents of reptilian venom. But this is an album that’s also more nuanced than you might expect. It conveys moods of wrenching misery as well as extravagant ferocity, and as pitch-black as the music usually is, it also includes moments that channel heart-breaking loss and heart-swelling incandescence.

To put it differently, death and desolation loom over the album like the great heartless reaper of souls we have imagined for millennia, but notwithstanding that ever-present shadow, the album is very much a dynamic experience. All the changing moods, and the expert way in which the band ring those changes through memorable riffs, are a big reason why the album is well worth listening to from beginning to end — which is exactly what we’re making it possible for you to do today, just a few days before its February 1 release by Iron Bonehead Productions. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DIM AURA — “BLACK HERETIC HATE”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Jan 302019
 

 

The thorned nightshade gardens of black metal have extravagantly expanded from their poisonous underground root stocks and become hybridized to the point where some of the offshoots have even taken on the kind of prettier hues that appeal to non-vampiric surface-dwellers. But of course there are still many black-hearted horticulturalists out there, devotedly caring for the genre’s barbed and deadly old-growth vines, greedily inhaling their aromas like pestilential perfume and exhaling hate.

The Israeli black metal band Dim Aura don’t completely reject the idea of hybridization, but they’re unquestionably devoted to the perpetuation of cold malice and tyrannical fury. Their newest display of sonic torment and cruelty is The Triumphant Age of Death, an album that will be released by Saturnal Records on March 22nd. It adds to a discography that includes a pair of EPs and a debut full-length from 2013, The Negation of Existence. From that album, we present its first single, an onslaught on organized religion named “Black Heretic Hate“. Continue reading »

QUICK HITS: INTEGRAL RIGOR, ANABASIS, AKANTHA

 Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Jan 302019
 

 

One consequence of agreeing to present so many premieres (four of them yesterday alone!) and persisting with my Infectious Song list (even though it’s already 40 tracks long) is that I have much less time to round up new songs and videos. As a consequence, my list of new things to listen to and write about has become so vast that it resembles a paper version of this scene from a beloved movie.

With more premieres to write for today and another installment of “Most Infectious” as well, I don’t really have time to catch up today, but I did want to quickly mention the music below before turning back to those other labors.

INTEGRAL RIGOR

Because of the conditions described above, I’ve barely scratched the surface of Alast, the just-released new album by the Iranian band Integral Rigor, but have had a very warm reaction to what’s gotten under my fingernails so far. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: FUNEREAL PRESENCE — “WHEREIN SEVEN CELESTIAL BEASTS ARE REVEALED TO HIM”

 Premieres  4 Responses »
Jan 292019
 

 

The four long tracks that made up the 2014 debut album of New York-based Funereal Presence left this writer full of wonder, and mentally and emotionally discombobulated. The Archer Takes Aim was both a savage visitation to the black metal of the genre’s halycon days and an almost experimental reimagining, never remaining in one space for very long, yet displaying such exuberant creativity that it became a beacon which pulled me back over and again.

It is thus a genuine thrill to share the news that Funereal Presence is returning with a new album that will be released by The Ajna Offensive in North America and by Sepulchral Voice in Europe. Entitled Achatius, it again consists of four long-form compositions, and if anything, the music is even more fantastical, more bewilderingly idiosyncratic and ingenious, and even more likely to leave listeners in a state of shock and awe.

The first astonishing revelation from the album is the song we’re presenting today, “Wherein Seven Celestial Beasts Are Revealed to Him“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: RIPARIAN — “THE NUCLEAR UNCLEAR”

 Premieres  5 Responses »
Jan 292019
 

 

With their impending self-titled debut EP, Pittsburgh’s Riparian channel a ferocious zeal for musical carnage while displaying impressive technicality, integrating elements of death metal and grindcore, and dosing their rapidly veering rampages with moments of doom and gloom.

“Grimy, weird, and filth-soaked,” is one way that Grimoire Records describes the sound, and it is Grimoire that will release the EP on March 1st. Today we present an outstandingly unhinged track from the EP named “The Nuclear Unclear” through a music video with a beer-lover’s back-story. Continue reading »

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