(written by Islander)
It should be called “Bandcamp Week” instead of “Bandcamp Friday”. Every week ending in one of those Friday’s, including last week, tends to see a greater than usual volume of new-music releases, a reflection of the principle that “recency is primacy” when it comes to spending decisions. This “Bandcamp Week” phenomenon further complicates the preparation of these Saturday columns, but I’m still glad Bandcamp is continuing the tradition this year.
While I have your attention, I want to add a note about changes planned for NCS next week before we get to the new metal I picked for today.
The NCS-sponsored Northwest Terror Fest begins in Seattle next Thursday and runs through next Saturday. With nearly 40 bands scheduled to play, headlined by Gorguts, Agalloch, and Demolition Hammer, it’s going to be a hell of a thing. If you’re within striking distance of Seattle and interested in tickets, there are still some left (at this location).
Three of us here — Andy Synn, DGR, and myself — will be working the festival. And the three of us also have preparatory things to do on the day before it kicks off. This means we will have fewer posts next week than usual. DGR has been going crazy with reviews so that we’ll have at least one thing on each of those “off days”, and Andy has some things in the works too. I’ve also received a couple of interviews that we’ll be able to publish.
As for myself, I have a pair of premieres planned each day for Monday and Tuesday and I did agree to do one song premiere for next Wednesday, but after that there will be no premieres until the following week, and I’m not planning to do the two usual columns next weekend (Seen and Heard and Shades of Black).
Wish us well for the festival. Hope to see you there. And now here are the songs and videos I pulled out of last week’s musical flood-tide:
AZURE EMOTE (U.S.)
Different people from different parts of the world arrive here at different times of the day and night, but it’s always early Saturday morning for me when I begin, so I tend to start off with things that wake me the fuck up. Like this new song and video from Philadelphia-based Azure Emote.
“Feast of Leeches” is a bracing combination of grandiosity, assault, and rapture. Mike Hrubovcak roars like a rabid bear; the drums fire like overheating weaponry; the riffing maniacally jolts and darts, swarms and soars. Bombastic symphonic bursts and frantically swirling strings accent the spectacle, but the music also segues into a sizzling and squirming bit of intriguing but demented sonic hallucination in which the rhythm section get to have fun playing off of each other.
After that the musical kaleidoscope continues to spin: choral voices elevate; the guitars convulse in spasms; the bear strains at its chains, furiously raging; the drumming cavorts in jaw-dropping fashion; the keys convey their haughtiness; the violin dances like some exotic spirit from a distant land.
What glorious madness this is! The video is gloriously mad too! And surely there’s more exhilarating madness (and peril) coming our way in Azure Emote‘s new album Cryptic Aura, which is set for release by Testimony Records on July 25th. Here’s the lineup on the new record:
Mike Hrubovcak – vocals, keyboards
Ryan Moll – guitars
Mike Heller – drums
Kelly Conlon – bass, trumpet
Pete Johansen – violins
Anna Murphy – clean vocals
http://lnk.spkr.media/azureemote-crypticaura
https://azureemote.bandcamp.com/album/cryptic-aura-2
https://www.facebook.com/azureemote/
CHTHONIC (閃靈) (Taiwan)
About seven years have passed since Chthonic‘s last album. In the interim, Freddie Lim served in Taiwan’s legislature, in addition to his many other social and political activities, so he’s been busy, though in the fall of 2023 he decided not to seek a third term.
Perhaps as a result of his finishing his term last year, we now have a new Chthonic single that has both an interesting (and disturbing) inspiration and interesting sounds, including bassist Doris Yeh singing in the traditional Taiwanese enka style. This article fleshes out both.
The song, “Endless Aeons“, focuses again on “Taiwan’s ever-reincarnating catastrophes”, though in this instance it was spawned by Lim‘s discovery that a family member was one of the victims.
In addition to featuring high-low snarling and screaming vocal intensity, the song is both a jolting muscle-mover and a head-spinner, but its traditional Chinese melodies (and the singing) express the grief aroused by the events in question, backed in part by some proggy rhythm-section work.
The song is both fierce and beautiful, both heart-breaking and defiant, and ultimately it’s gloriously resilient. It comes with a compelling video too, which includes English subtitles for the lyrics.
The song is just a single, but it appears Chthonic are now also working on more new music.
https://lnk.to/muziu-0518
https://www.facebook.com/chthonictw
https://www.instagram.com/chthonictw
SKJOLDEN (U.S.)
The next song caught my attention because it’s from the debut album of “a solitary folly” helmed by the very talented Carl Skildum (from Majesties, Inexorum, and Antiverse). The song’s intriguing title, which shares the name of the album, is “Insouciant Metaphysical Grandeur“.
I had forgotten the meaning of “insouciant”, so I looked it up. It means “showing a casual lack of concern; indifferent.” Now combine that with “metaphysical grandeur” and you can begin curiously scratching your head.
The song itself does have elements of mysteriously quivering grandeur in the mix, but it’s also a big rumbling marauder, spiced with layered guitars that fiercely writhe, vividly throb, and feverishly chime, channeling different dark moods.
Ragged and raking vocals howl above the fray, while prominent bass-lines punch damned hard and the drums veer from full-throttle blasting to head-hooking snaps and double-bass earthquakes. Except at the beginning and in the song’s grand symphonic final phase (which is celestial and haunting), you won’t sit still while this one goes by.
The album features cover art by Mark Erskine (Erskine Designs), and it’s set for release on June 20th.
https://skjolden.bandcamp.com/album/insouciant-metaphysical-grandeur
TENEBRAE IN PERPETUUM (Italy)
Roughly six years after their last album, Tenebrae In Perpetuum (Latin for “Darkness Forever”) are returning with their fifth studio full-length, Vacuum Coeli, which I think means “The vacuum of heaven”.
The name of the album track that surfaced last week is “Occhio Ardente, Dio del Caos“. An online translation tool tells me this means “Burning Eye, God of Chaos”. Consistent with that, the music does burn, but like some frenzied supernatural fire spirit that follows no straight line.
Thankfully, the production of the music allows discernment of all its rapidly moving parts, including the hurtling nimbleness of the bass and the furious and turn-on-a-dime machinations of the drums, in addition to the startling, mind-spearing madness of the multi-textured guitar-work and the caustic vitriol snarled and spit by the vocals.
The music races fast and brilliantly glitters in its dazzling revelries, but it also dramatically down-shifts and allows the ringing tones to convey sinister menace before all the fire-spirits are given free reign for their chaos again as the drums ruinously blast and vividly gallop.
As we sometimes say in the trade, you’d better fill your lungs with air before you spin into this wild ride.
Vacuum Coeli will be released by Avantgarde Music on June 20th. The remarkable cover art is a painting by Vama Marga (Depths Above).
https://avantgardemusic.bandcamp.com/album/vacuum-coeli
https://www.facebook.com/tenebraeinperpetuum/
JOLIETTE (MEXICO)
Having in mind that we’re just a couple of days away from Cinco de Mayo, I was drawn to this next song by the Mexico City-based post-hardcore band Joliette. Paired with a head-scrambling video, the song is “Nimbus” and it’s from Joliette‘s new album Pérdidas Variables.
Like the preceding song by that Italian black metal band, this one also struck me as a kind of revelry, bursting at the seams with energy, though it eventually becomes more unsettling. The drums set up a vivid clatter; the big bass-throbs feel like the pulse of the earth beneath our feet; the guitar sizzles and slashes through the tumult in piercing and sometimes stridently dissonant tones; the high-pitched hardcore vocals spray blood.
Things do briefly get slower and more dismal and distraught, but the rhythm section don’t settle down for long and start bounding off the walls again, even as the guitars continue ringing out their disorienting distress.
Well, that’s what I felt listening. The album as a whole is a meditation on Mexico City. As for this song, guitarist Juan Pablo Castillo explains:
“‘Nimbus‘ explores the quiet, almost hypnotic beauty of a rainy night in the city. It’s about how the rain blurs the line between the external world and the internal, creating a sense of isolation and introspection. The song captures that moment when the city feels both distant and close, as the rain transforms the landscape into something dreamlike. It’s a meditation on the passage of time, memories, and how everything seems to fade into a soft, gray atmosphere.”
Pérdidas Variables will be out on June 20th via Persistent Vision Records.
https://persistentvisionrecords.com/products/joliette-perdidas-variables-lpbvng
https://www.facebook.com/joliettemx/
CWFEN (Scotland)
I’m closing with a song that will make newcomers to NCS snarkily yell “But there’s singing!” And yes there is, but the singing (sometimes in a harmony) is by my lights quite remarkable, a dark mid-range wail that commands attention — though by the end it’s joined by scalding screams of unhinged intensity too.
The song as a whole also commands attention, and warrants the M-A categorization of Cwfen‘s music as blend of gothic/doom-metal and shoegaze. Boasting a humongous clanging bass riff and spine-snapping beats, it sets up a grim repeating pattern beneath the singing that’s a reflexive muscle-mover.
Once that foundation is hammered into stone, the guitar intermittently begins spinning out high spectral and scraping tones, and as the groove briefly alters it wretchedly warbles. The burly bass also brings in some new maneuvers but always returns to keep the groove locked in, and the guitar squalls. When the human screaming arrives to shred like knives, the drums boom and the guitars shiver and scream, drawing the song to a close with audio hallucinations.
This one I can’t get out of my head, so why should I be alone?
The song is “Bodies” and it’s from a new album by Cwfen (pronounced “coven”) entitled Sorrows. Press materials depict it well: “The allure of Cwfen’s sound lies in contrasts: the glacial ferocity of Amenra, with the velvet-and-razor vocals of King Woman, and the rotting grandeur of Type O Negative. It’s as hypnotic as it is harrowing, but somehow even better than the sum of those parts.” It’s set for release on May 30th by New Heavy Sounds.
https://cwfen.bandcamp.com/album/sorrows
https://lnk.to/Cwfen_Sorrows
https://instagram.com/cwfenband
https://www.facebook.com/Cwfenband/