Apr 112023
 

(Andy Synn explores the new album from the shapeshifting sultans of strange, Dødheimsgard)

There’s an unfortunate tendency, as I’m sure many of you aware, among some of the more… ahem… self-consciously “Avant-Garde” members of the Metal community to try a little too hard to convince everyone how progressive, how clever, and how creative they are, rather than letting their work simply speak for itself.

Whether that’s due to a lack of confidence – or an over-abundance of it – is always up for debate, but the truth is it’s almost always better to show rather than tell, and if you’re more interested in making solipsistic statements and delivering pretentious proclamations about your own intelligence, then… well, that says a lot, doesn’t it?

Dødheimsgard, however, have always come by their weirdness honestly, and their unwillingness to conform has never come across as contrived or calculated, but simply as an organic expression of their own unique oddness.

And Black Medium Current is a sublime space oddity of a very special sort, no doubt about it, that may one day be held up as the band’s de facto magnum opus.

Continue reading »

Apr 102023
 

Today marks the third time we’ve premiered a complete album by the German band Zeit — all three of the band’s full-lengths so far — in addition to lots of other features we’ve done for singles and videos leading up to those premieres. Obviously, we haven’t grown weary of their music. To the contrary, Zeit just keep getting better and better.

Their new album, which will be released on April 14th, is named Ohnmacht. For those of us who don’t speak their native tongue, Zeit explains that this title is a German word that “describes a state of lethargie”, “a powerlessness that results in an accepting behaviour despite the fact of being oppositional to tragic events”. In more detail, they have elaborated on the album’s concept:

A life between the chains of civilization: Stumbling from crisis to crisis, we numbly stare into the nothingness. “What now?” the mind wonders as it dances into the shadows. Frustration, anger and disgust are pushing us to the beat of forced productivity – driven by pandemic, war and climate change. The world struggles with itself and yet does not give up. Because where all is lost, there is hope and freedom. Expect nothing, fear everything. Continue reading »

Apr 102023
 

As you can see, today we have a song premiere today. It’s from the debut album Sacrilegious by the band Suton from Bosnia and Herzegovina. It will be co-released by Satanath Records and InsArt Records on April 18th. But today’s song is the second one revealed so far from the album. We should start with the first one.

That one, “Celestial Consciousness. Starlight Divine.“, makes a striking impact, not soon forgotten, in part because it’s such an elaborate interweaving of stylistic strands. It creates tumult through electrifying drum revolutions, earth-heaving bass lines, savagely roiling riffs, and monstrous vocals. It also drapes the mind with a cold, swirling fog of supernatural creepiness in which a tormented voice wails its song.

The guitars reverberate in torment too, but also join with the bass to slug like a two-fisted bare-knuckled fighter. Gloom descends at the same time as the singing elevates and the guitars ring like brittle chimes. World-weary chants ensue amidst vividly undulating bass tones and skull-rattling drumwork. Scalding howls take over, and the riffing seems like the sound of a giant serpent moving beneath the earth. The music becomes a kind of moaning menace and staggers and crashes, though the permutations of that bass continue to rivet attention. Continue reading »

Apr 092023
 


Pieter Bruegel – “The Fall of the Rebel Angels”

Today is Easter Sunday, this year falling in the midst of Passover and Ramadan — a Holy Trifecta! To all “people of faith” out there reflecting on messages of hope, tolerance, liberation from oppression, the needs of the less fortunate, and visions of a more just world based on equality and dignity of the individual, we wish you well.

For those more focused on imposing your beliefs on others and abusing those who won’t submit, as predecessors of your kind have done for millennia, seems like you’ve lost your way. In more ways than one today, because people like that aren’t likely to land on this site anyway except by mistake (e.g., searching for “no spring cleaning”).

With that out of the way, we’re not observing any ancient commandments or rituals today, especially those that claim divine inspiration, just my own Sunday tradition of uplifting musical rebellion in some of its blackest expressions, including those who find Hell is where their heart is. Continue reading »

Apr 082023
 


Maniaco

My track record of posting new-music roundups on Bandcamp Fridays is spotty. I probably fail as often as I succeed. I know that people save up Bandcamp wish lists based on things they’ve discovered in between those Fridays, including music they’ve found through our reviews and other roundups. But those Fridays still seem like good days to spread the word about enticing new metal because lots of people are making purchase decisions right then, when Bandcamp has a moratorium on its 15% and 10% revenue grabs.

I did manage to pull together a roundup on yesterday’s Bandcamp Friday. I didn’t have much time to do it (I again blame my fucking day job), which resulted in fewer choices than I had in mind and a lot fewer words, but I hope it was better than nothing. I hope it gave those six bands a bit of a push for their forthcoming records.

Now we’re back to the in-between period. I hope some of what I picked today will wind up on new wish lists or result in immediate pick-ups. Or maybe you’ll just get pumped up listening, like I did this morning. (P.S. If you wonder why I give a damn about Bandcamp as a platform for music, scroll to the very bottom of this article.) Continue reading »

Apr 072023
 


Sammath

If I didn’t already know, I could have guessed this was a Bandcamp Friday from the choking flood of Bandcamp alerts, messages, and press releases that hit our in-box overnight and shows no sign of stopping. Real tough to know what to recommend, even based on the far-from-exhaustive and truly random smattering of listening I’ve done earlier this week and this morning. But below is what I came up with.

In an effort to compile a larger shopping list for you in a short amount of time, I made a rare effort to (mostly) choke off my own words down to brief gurgles.

SAMMATH (Netherlands)

I’ve had the good fortune to hear a few of the tracks on this veteran black metal band’s ferocious new album Grebbeberg. Inspired by the resistance of the Dutch army against Nazi invaders in World War II, and more specifically by the experiences of a relative of mainman Jan Kruitwagen who perished in that conflict, the album is a stunning audio rendition of extreme warfare under the most desperate conditions, and sees Sammath reaching what might be the zenith of their long career. Continue reading »

Apr 072023
 


photo by Bobby Bonesy

In writing about the music of the New Orleans ensemble Anareta we feel a gnawing sense of inadequacy (more than the usual). There’s an anxious conviction that to do it true justice would require more knowledge and learned appreciation for classical music, including the beautiful interplay of instrumental voices in chamber music, than we possess. On the other hand, we do know a thing or two about extreme metal music, and that turns out to be equally relevant.

Of course, Anareta aren’t the only band who have sought to integrate compositional and instrumental traditions of Western classical music with the harshness and aggression of heavy metal in some of its more extreme forms. But many other bands in that space use orchestral synths to weave in the classical elements. Even the more subdued sounds of string sections are usually the result of programmed samples.

Anareta, on the other hand, have a more authentic approach, with a line-up that includes performers on viola (Mackenzie Hamilton), cello (Sam Hollier), and violin (Louise Neal), along with the more familiar metal instrumentation of guitar (Carey Goforth), bass guitar (Sarah Jacques), and drums (Boyanna Trayanova). And it’s not just the instrumentation that’s so multi-faceted, because three of those performers (Jacques, Neal, and Hamilton) contribute to the vocals, and they’re varied too. Continue reading »

Apr 072023
 

(In this new interview Comrade Aleks talked with Jason Asberry, one of the two people behind the St. Louis-based melodic black band Stormruler, whose most recent album was released to considerable acclaim last fall.)

Stormruler from St. Louis got the contract with Napalm Records right from the start. Their first album Under the Burning Eclipse (2021) and the second one Sacred Rites & Black Magick (2022) were both released under the Napalm banner. I believe that made the way for their epic and melodic black metal to reach listeners remarkably easier.

Jason Asberry (vocals, guitars) and Jesse Schobel (drums), with the help of guest musicians, conquered European crowds in a grand tour that started in March, but somehow they found the time to answer a few of my questions and shed some light on their black metal art. Continue reading »

Apr 062023
 

We don’t know much about the background of Kuolevan Rukous. The names used by the band’s three members — Unholy Necrosis, Tuliips, and Buer Enkoimesis — are not the ones they were born with. Although a German band, they chose a Finnish name for themselves, one that translates as “The Prayer of the Dead“. And apart from the track names, we don’t have any special insights into the inspirations or conceptions behind their first demo release, which will be out on April 14th.

And so, Kuolevan Rukous are a paradigm example of an obscure group whose music must speak for itself. It turns out to be a very interesting form of speech. A trio of underground labels — Vita Detestabilis, Reaping Death Records, and Grieve Records — will release this debut demo on tape, and Vita Detestabilis previews it by telling us that Kuolevan Rukous have expressed themselves “through asphyxiating dissonances, noisy atmospheres, and using death doom as a conductor for funeral black”.

Those words created intrigue around here, and the music itself proved to be intriguing, and far, far more than that. It was not a difficult decision for us to be the bearer of the demo’s premiere today. Continue reading »

Apr 062023
 

(Today we present Comrade Aleks‘ extensive interview with Philippe Courtoisfounder of the foundational French extreme metal band Misanthrope, who are still alive and well 35 years after the band’s inception.)

The ancient city of Angers, Maine-et-Loire, is famous with its rich history, and you may have heard about Angers Cathedral, Château d’Angers, and the Apocalypse Tapestry. At least you may have heard of the liqueur Cointreau and it’s not a bad choice after all. But the city is known to metalheads for another historical event – almighty Misanthrope raised its head when Philippe Courtois (also known as S.A.S. de l’Argilière) gathered the band’s first line-up in 1988 proclaiming his manifest of hate to mankind.

The band gained well-deserved recognition fast, as their avant-garde and technical death metal demonstrated a unique blend of influences stretching far from metal music. French lyrics, a highly artistic approach to the songwriting, and energetic live performances soon became the band’s trademarks, a features which differentiated Misanthrope from other death metal maniacs.

Besides that, Philippe played an important role in the world-wide metal underground as he’s a co-owner of the French metal label Holy Records alongside Séverine Foujanet. A lot of bands from the ’90s started their career with HolyNightfall, On Thorns I Lay, Orphaned Land, Septic Flesh, and more. Continue reading »