SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: BYZANTINE, CRYPTOPSY, GRUESOME, NIHIL KAOS, WEEPING SORES, XIPHOID DEMENTIA

(written by Islander)

I began the day, barely awake, by reading an account of how the U.S. Revolutionary War began 250 years ago today. It was delivered in a speech last night, on the 250th anniversary of the famed events that led to war’s commencement. The speaker was a historian, and she told the story at a lantern lighting ceremony at Boston’s Old North Church commemorating the “two if by sea” signal from the church’s steeple.

The narrative of what happened that night and the next day is a remarkable and inspiring story. If you’re so inclined, you can find it here or here. Of course, people now celebrate the events because the cause succeeded. It might just as easily have failed, and all the revolutionaries executed or imprisoned. They certainly didn’t know how things would turn out more than 8 years later, 8 years almost always spent on the brink of failure. They risked their lives anyway, resisting tyranny.

The only reason I’m beginning today’s roundup this way is because it was the main thing on my mind as I began making musical choices, but not because there’s any connection between the one and the other. Though the roots of this music and many of its current flowerings would be seen as radical and subversive in much of the surface world, at least here (and for now) those who make it and enjoy it aren’t endangering their freedom or their lives, though elsewhere some people are.

But maybe now’s not the time to take anything for granted anywhere. The old history seems more relevant on this anniversary than it has in a very long time. Or at least that’s where my head is this morning.

Well, please forgive these ramblings if they strike you as entirely beside the point, and please enjoy these choices, even though you didn’t get a vote on any of this.

 

BYZANTINE (U.S.)

Given the nature of my preamble today, I thought I ought to begin with a U.S. band. Given our site’s extensive history with Byzantine, I thought their new song should be at the starting line.

It hasn’t been 250 years since Byzantine‘s last album, but the nearly 8 years that have elapsed since The Cicada Tree is still a pretty big gap, even with the Black Sea Codex EP leaving a marker 2 1/2 years ago. But at last this West Virginia band are back with a new album, and “Floating Chrysanthema” is the dynamic first sign of what it brings, brought to us with an excellent video.

The song twists and turns several times in its opening minute — eerily ringing, frantically swirling and hammering, and then kicking into its jabbing, pulse-punching main riff. Chris Ojeda is in good voice, which is to say his gritty snarl sounds fierce, and so do his soaring clean vocals.

The rest of the band are also locked in, delivering the grooves with some interesting counter-punching beats and a cool bass-and-drum solo, moving from the swiftly jabbing fretwork into flows of more panoramic melody to back Ojeda‘s singing, ringing their mystical chimes again, and then spinning up their musical kaleidoscope to a new zenith for the finale.

A fisherman would be envious of all the rhythmic and melodic hooks in this one. Here’s what Ojeda had to say about the song’s lyrical inspiration (you can find the compelling lyrics beneath the video at YouTube):

“The track details a bleak dystopian future when artificial intelligence becomes sentient and overpowers mankind, essentially enslaving us all. Our bassist, Ryan Postlethwait, brought this song to the band and we thought it hit like a sledgehammer and would be a perfect first introduction of our new music to the fans. Our producer, Peter Wichers (Soilwork) had a big hand in helping craft this song into its final iteration.”

The name of the new album is Harbinger. It’s set for release by Metal Blade on June 13th.

https://www.metalblade.com/byzantine/
https://byzantine.bandcamp.com/album/harbingers
https://www.facebook.com/Byzantinewv

 

CRYPTOPSY (Canada)

There’s music from some other U.S. bands in this 250th anniversary roundup, but while we’re remembering things about what the country used to stand for it seemed right to remember our friends to the north at a time when our current regime is treating them like shit. And so… Cryptopsy!

Like Byzantine these Montréal maniacs will be bringing us a new album in June, and in naming it An Insatiable Violence they’ve created violent expectations. Season of Mist will be releasing it and have provided a lot of detail about it. Here’s what they say about the first single:

Olivier Pinard’s gruesome bass slaps – and yet, at its core “Until There’s Nothing Left” stakes its claim as CRYPTOPSY’s biggest earworm. Even Flo Mounier – who literally wrote the book on extreme metal drumming – has honed new techniques to keep the blasphemy of An Insatiable Violence fresh.

I’ll add that “Until There’s Nothing Left” is an audio summoning of derangement. The riffing maniacally boils. The roaring and screaming vocals are voracious and berserk. The bass thunders. And while the drumming is indeed inventive, Flo Mounier also frequently cuts loose like automatic weaponry.

Cryptopsy do switch things up, jolting as well as swarming, dismally undulating as well as giving us a freakish guitar solo and venting terrorizing screams. But it’s all mad – and the video underlines the madness with a heavy pen.

An Insatiable Violence will be released by Season of Mist on June 20th.

https://cryptopsyofficial.bandcamp.com/album/an-insatiable-violence
https://www.facebook.com/cryptopsyofficial

 

GRUESOME (U.S.)

Time for another U.S. band and our third video in a row, this one for the exhilarating song “A Darkened Window” off Gruesome‘s new album Silent Echoes — which “was written and recorded in the spirit of Death’s 1991 progressive death metal masterpiece, Human.”

That inspiration is quite evident in this thoroughly head-spinning new track, which is fast, freakish, and gloriously unpredictable. The vocals are thoroughly crazed and the fretwork is sometimes feverishly menacing, but it’s ecstatically jubilant too. The rhythm section of drummer Gus Rios and bassist Robin Mazen earn their keep as well, even in the midst of such nimble-fingered, asylum-quality guitar romps.

Silent Echoes will be released by Relapse Records on June 6th. It features cover art by Travis Smith, and it’s dedicated to the memory of Sean Reinert and Chuck Schuldiner.

https://gruesomedeathmetal.bandcamp.com/album/silent-echoes
https://www.facebook.com/gruesomedeathmetal

 

NIHIL KAOS (Turkey)

The Turkish extremists in Nihil Kaos have now set May 16th as the release date for their new album Mystagogue. Late last year we premiered “Eternal Genesis,” the album’s closing track and the first song publicly revealed from the record. Yesterday the band revealed a second song, the astonishing “Pendulum Luciferi“.

The song’s sweeping opening, a blaze of occult melody, immediately creates visions of diabolical glory. But after a quick magically swirling guitar bridge, it explodes in a torrent of blistering riffage, blasting drums, and fanatical screams.

And the changes keep coming. The layered guitars still sizzle but also slither and ring, creating an abysmal mood. They also spin and swirl, like levitating warlocks circling flames. Keyboard tones exotically ping and ripple in the midst of the mayhem and the poison, and the music as a whole levitates, leading toward an unsettling conclusion.

May 16 is the album’s digital release date via Bandcamp, and it’s available for pre-order there. A CD release will be announced later.

https://nihilkaos.bandcamp.com/album/mystagogue
https://www.facebook.com/nihilkaos666/

 

WEEPING SORES (U.S.)

Back to the U.S. we go, with early signs of a new album by Weeping Sores after False Confession six years before. The title of the new album is The Convalescence Agonies, so named because it was written during vocalist/guitarist Doug Moore‘s slow and painful recovery from a severe injury to his right shoulder — during a time when all sorts of other pitfalls plagued him in other ways.

Last week brought us the album’s opening song, “Arctic Summer“. It is turbulent and laced with sounds of pain, including tortured notes and Moore‘s wretched screams. It is also jolting and grim, staggering and wounded, matched by Moore‘s harrowing roars. But it is also dreamlike, thanks to interludes of gossamer keys and a gently musing (but increasingly stricken) cello performed by Annie Blythe, though even the dreams are unsettling.

Pain is never far away in the song, pain rendered in constantly changing ways, both visceral and hallucinatory, pain in the body and pain in the mind. The music moans and groans, whines in agony, feverishly quivers (thanks to the cello again), and heavily stomps. But when the drums begin furiously hammering, feverish fretwork vividly whirs and darts, creating sensations that sound (maybe?) like defiance and resilience.

A truly kaleidoscopic song this is, obviously disturbing in various ways but also wondrously multi-faceted.

At Bandcamp there’s a lot more info about the nature of the album and the people who participated in it besides Moore and drummer Steve Schwegler. It was mastered by Greg Chandler, it features cover art by Caroline Harrison, and it will be released by I, Voidhanger Records on May 30th.

https://i-voidhangerrecords.bandcamp.com/album/the-convalescence-agonies
https://www.facebook.com/weepingsores

 

JADE (Spain)

I think it’s fair to say that every song in today’s collection has been extravagant in different ways, and that is certainly true of Jade‘s new song and video.

In a word, “Darkness In Movement” is electrifying. In more words, the vividly hammered beats will get your muscles moving; the expansive and exotic melodies will take over your head, like a kind of dangerous sorcery; the well-rounded and fully fanged growls can send shivers down the spine.

The music also roils and wails, frantically jitters and feverishly throbs, and seems to uneasily wriggle and yet seductively beckon while the vocals go sky high. The notes bring piercing bell-like clarity as an overture to a magnificent guitar solo, which itself is a prelude to a stunning crescendo of dangerous and demented magnificence.

So many other things happen within the song – it’s another one today that merits the term kaleidoscopic. When it spins back to the way it opened, it’s again electrifying to hear that, though at no point is the song ever less than that.

As you’ll see, the video is a very cool one as well. And if you go to YouTube, you’ll see a writeup beneath it by NCS contributor Zoltar, which provides insights into the conception of the album that includes this song.

The name of that album is Mysteries Of A Flowery Dream. It will be released by Pulverised Records on May 9th.

https://pulverised.bandcamp.com/album/mysteries-of-a-flowery-dream
https://www.facebook.com/jadestonemask/

 

XIPHOID DIMENTIA (U.S.)

One last stop back in the U.S. before we close the book on today’s collection, and it’s the opening song from Xiphoid Dementia‘s new album Spiral Rapture Holy War. On the album’s cover you can see a photo of soldiers walking the ruins of a no man’s land in World War I. The image is there for a reason, as explained on the album’s Bandcamp page:

Xiphoid Dementia‘s latest effort Spiral Rapture Holy War explores the forces that will either shape the plight of humanity or eradicate it. Further evolving the project’s previous style this time incorporating more elements of martial industrial, rhythmic industrial, dungeon synth, post-industrial, and dark ambient. The album paints a bleak horizon over dead fields and marks a stark warning which will surely only fall on deaf ears.

The name of the opening song is “In Victory There Is Only Death“. In this one, the project’s alter ego, Seattle-based Egan Budd, creates a haunting experience with sounds of orchestral strings and high voices, but ominous foghorn-like blasts and piercing chimes begin to interrupt the beautifully spectral sensations.

Eventually the music becomes more tormented. The keyboards still ring, but frantically, like a harpsichordist losing his mind. Bombs seem to drop, and guns seem to throb in bursts of scathing violence beneath wailing singing, glistening sonic shimmers, and frantically darting strings.

And so once more, though you might not have thought so at first, we have another extravagant piece of music to end things today.

https://xdementia.bandcamp.com/album/spiral-rapture-holy-war
https://www.facebook.com/xdementia