(written by Islander)
I didn’t think I would do this column today. First, because yesterday I agreed to an emergency request for a premiere today in celebration of the high holiday. And second, because I didn’t go to sleep until 2 am this morning due to an alcohol-fueled reunion with old friends last night.
But so far I haven’t received what I agreed to premiere, and though my brain is very fuzzy I’m thinking some blackish music might clear away the fuzz. So, blaze and praise, here we go.
SIGNERI (Sweden)
With the exception of the last project in today’s collection, I wasn’t familiar with any of the bands included in this roundup, mostly because they’re all very new. I decided to explain what drew me to each of them. In the case of Signeri it was the striking cover art for their self-titled debut album and the FFO references to Tribulation, Voivod, and Satyricon.
Having been seduced in those ways, I launched the album’s opening track “Darkness Embrace“, and was then further seduced by its big rocking beats, by its head-hooking collage of strummed chords and gleaming, rippling tones, and by the snarling-goblin vocals.
The song evolves in ways both menacing and mystical. The music heavily heaves and cruelly slashes; clean vocals rise up (I thought of Ghost); and the drums pump like mighty pistons. The song as a whole also rises up, in a display of diabolical grandeur, as the voices herald the coming of darkness.
A damned catchy and damned fine way to start today’s listening. The album will be released on June 13th by ViciSolum Records.
https://vicisolumrecords.bandcamp.com/album/signeri
AMBULACRUM (Int’l)
I felt compelled to explore these next two songs because:
First, it’s from a record that will be released by Centipede Abyss; second, the label describes the music as “First wave BM worship in the vein of Bathory, celtic frost, early enslaved”; third, because I saw the drummer is Jared Moran; and fourth, because it’s lyrically described as “a concept about the works of Sir Thomas Urquhart, Knight of Cromarty (1611-1660); a Scottish writer and translator” whose “eccentric works ranged from inventing universal languages to bizarre mathematical speculations.”
Presumably the works of Sir Thomas explain most of the song titles, which are otherwise confounding. The two songs up on Bandcamp now are the record’s title song “Pantochronochanon” and the closing track “Logopandecteision“. See what I mean?
Both songs are pleasingly strange, even disorienting. The lead guitar is often shrill, psychedelic, and psychotic, with a sprinkling of piano keys adding to the mercurial oddities. Sometimes the drums rock out, but they also brutally bludgeon and ruthlessly batter. The bass wobbles and weaves as often as it throbs. Especially in the second song, the unpredictable frolics and tempo shifts of the rhythm section almost steal the whole show. The vocals are hellish and scarring.
Such fascinating mind-benders. The songs have an experimental and sometimes near-improvisational quality, and a ton of demented flair is on display. I’m not sure what kind of micro-genre this fits into, but I doubt those references to Bathory, Celtic Frost, and early Enslaved are going to prepare you for what happens.
https://centipedeabyss.bandcamp.com/album/pantochronochanon
https://www.facebook.com/Ambulacrum
LÁSTIMA (U.S.)
Last week we heard from Philadelphia-based Liminal Dread Productions about a debut album they’re releasing for the Philly band Lástima. The album’s name pulled me in: a pain bloomed from my lungs. So did the pitch that the music is FFO Deafheaven, Exulansis, Envy, and Oathbreaker. So did the label’s further description of the music as “A heady post-black barrage with soaring classical violin passages and many allusions to traditional latin music and romantic era classical.”
That seemed interesting, and so is “al cerro ancon,” the one song from the album now streaming at Bandcamp. It’s quite a sonic kaleidoscope. The violin plays a lead role, wailing up high while the fretwork suddenly crashs, vividly chimes, and enticingly glitters. The muttered vocals sound morose and the drums create constant variations, many of them eye-popping.
However, the song also ravishes, with tremolo’d riffage boiling, drums blasting, bass boiling, and voices furiously shrieking and extravagantly crying out. The layered melodic lines throughout the song pierce though, sometimes rapturous, sometimes yearning, sometimes stricken. Near the end, piano keys slowly wander, and the violin wails again, a brief contemplation before another heart-pumping commotion.
Hearing this song, most of those FFO references make sense, especially Deafheaven and Exulansis, but at times Lifelover also came to mind.
https://lastimamusic.bandcamp.com/album/a-pain-bloomed-from-my-lungs
https://www.facebook.com/lastimamusic
OLESIN (Poland)
Roughly a decade ago the black metal band Toska released their self-titled debut EP (available here), and I fell for it hard, as I recalled when reading the review I posted in another of these columns way back when. At the time, Toska disclosed that they were based in Iceland but consisted of one member from the UK and another from Poland. They haven’t been heard from since.
However, because I bought that EP, I received a Bandcamp alert from Toska a few days ago announcing this about the first music from a band named Olesin:
New presence from Toska members for Crucifiction day. Ferocious, dark, primitive black metal.
Olesin is a forest in East of Poland where all members are from. Place of decrepit XVIII century palace, libations, fights, suicides, drownings, mystifying lights, the birthplace of figures who changed the course of history.
Well of course I went over to Bandcamp to hear Olesin‘s debut release, I-III. Those three songs flash past, each of them less than three minutes long. They’re ravaging eruptions of raw black metal, mangling to the ears and clobbering to the skull — but eerily wailing tones also waft or sizzle through those assaults, singing vocals join forces with the ruinous screams and snarls, and the drumming proves to be much more variable than first impressions might lead a listener to expect.
Though they don’t last long, the songs constantly throw listeners off balance in different ways, including the astral ambient conclusion to the second one and subtle celestial symphonics within the third, which ends with a brief and mournful violin.
Does everything hold together, given the stark contrasts in the music’s ingredients? You’ll be your own judge, but I think these songs do indeed follow through on what inspired them, conjuring decrepit old palaces, libations, fights, suicides, drownings, and mystifying lights.
https://olesin.bandcamp.com/album/i-iii
MÜTTERLEIN (France)
To close things out here’s a video of Mütterlein performing the song “Requiem” at the inaugural Servants of Chaos festival hosted by Debemur Morti Productions and Parasite Gallows in Oberhausen, Germany last October. The video was released by DMP last week, and it helps draw attention to Mütterlein‘s forthcoming third album, Amidst the Flames, May Our Organs Resound (set for release on May 9th by DMP).
However, “Requiem” isn’t off the new album. It’s the long closing song on Mütterlein‘s second album Bring Down the Flags (available here). The video performance is a long one too, but I don’t think you’ll regret spending 14 of your minutes this way. I sure as hell didn’t regret it. It’s stunning.
https://mutterlein.bandcamp.com/album/amidst-the-flames-may-our-organs-resound
https://www.facebook.com/mutterlein