(written by Islander)
The last two weeks have been out of the ordinary here, and the next 10 days will be too. In the weeks now past I and a few of my NCS comrades joined forces with a lot of other terrific volunteers to help put on the 3-day Northwest Terror Fest in Seattle. (See above, just after we finished last Saturday night.) The fest was fantastic, but it didn’t leave me enough clear-headed time to do the usual weekend posts for NCS.
During the past week I had some good post-fest outings in the Seattle area with DGR and Andy Synn. That put a crimp in my usual new-music listening. And now, beginning on Wednesday of this coming week, we’re all going to venture to Baltimore with other friends to take in Maryland Deathfest. That makes it highly unlikely I will be doing the usual NCS posts next weekend either.
The wall of possibilities for this roundup and the blacker one tomorrow is enormous. I scraped against it, sort of like Andy Dufresne in Shawshank Redemption digging through the wall of his cell with a tiny rock hammer, except I don’t have 19 years to get the job done. Here’s what I chipped away for today.
NOISE TRAIL IMMERSION (Italy)
What better way to start a Saturday than by leading folks into Noise Trail Immersion? I, Voidhanger Records is typically eloquent at Bandcamp in describing the experience of the band’s new album Tutta La Morte In Un Solo Punto, though I had to look elsewhere for a translation of that title into something I could comprehend (it seems to mean “All Death In One Point”).
I also had to look elsewhere for the meaning of the album’s first advance song, “Arde e Respira” (“Burns and Breathes”). That song is breathtaking, bamboozling, and calamitous — a howling, roaring, battering, bludgeoning, and bizarre onslaught. It intertwines freakishly writhing coils and darting bursts of dissonant and harmonious guitars above relentlessly mutating bass-and-drum escapades. The riffing itself is remarkably fast and twisted, guaranteed to provoke one of those “what the fuck did I just hear?!?” moments.
Tutta La Morte In Un Solo Punto is set for release by IVR on June 27th.
https://i-voidhangerrecords.bandcamp.com/album/tutta-la-morte-in-un-solo-punto
https://www.facebook.com/NoiseTrailImmersion
CRUST (Russia)
The Russian band Crust are a favorite around here, an obvious point given that we’ve written about them no fewer than 10 times over the last 10 years. The occasion for today’s 11th entry is an excellent video for a new song named “Lightgiver” off their forthcoming sixth album Where Light Fears To Descend. At last, a chance to see Crust perform.
Ominously momentous at first, “Lightgiver” furiously races and boils. The vocals are scorching, the drums a hurtling menace, and the whir of the rising and falling riffage channels desperation. When the race slows, the music becomes sinister and occult in its visions, but the lead guitar also rings in a way that’s melodically stricken — before the music spins up into a sweeping conflagration, marked by the vocalist’s shattering cries.
A very dark piece of work, and also very exhilarating, as Crust lean hard into their black metal influences.
Where Light Fears To Descend will be released by Moribund Records on May 23rd. At Bandcamp you can check out two more previously released songs from the album.
https://www.moribundcult.com/product/DEAD334D.html
https://www.moribundcult.com/product/DEAD334LPG.html
https://moribundrecords.bandcamp.com/album/where-light-fears-to-descend
https://www.facebook.com/crustsludge/
DOMKRAFT (Sweden)
To give away a vague clue about my age, I saw The Ramones play live back in their heyday. I loved them then and still do. And so I was excited to see that Magnetic Eye Records will be releasing (as part of its Redux Series) an album of Ramones covers, Marc Urselli’s Ramones Redux. It includes performances by the likes of Ufomammut, Napalm Death, and Imperial Triumphant.
MER has been dribbling out some of the covers in advance of the album’s June 6 release, and the latest one is a collaboration among Domkraft, guitarist Ulf Cederlund of Entombed and Disfear, and members of the US stoner metal band Solace (vocalist Justin Goins and guitarist Tommy Southard). The song they covered is “Today Your Love, Tomorrow the World“.
Gnarly squirming riffage and a vividly bubbling bass play key roles in the original of the song, which is gloomier than many Ramones‘ songs (not surprisingly, given the nature of what inspired it).
The bass remains a vital presence in Domkraft‘s cover, but they and their comrades twist the riffage into a rapidly quivering and squalling presence, give the rhythms a harder punch, provide more extravagant vocals, and lace the song with slowly wailing and writhing psychedelic leads that steal the show. They also significantly extend the song’s length and eventually slow things down — to get even trippier.
The cover is even doomier than the original, and orders of magnitude more hallucinatory. It’s one of those covers where a band doesn’t faithfully track the original but uses it as inspiration for something intriguingly inventive, becoming its own thing.
http://lnk.spkr.media/ramones-redux
https://www.facebook.com/domkraftband
ANGEROT (U.S.)
The press release for this South Dakota band’s new album Seofan reports that following their last LP they found themselves drummer-less and were looking for a solution for the material they were writing. They decided to reach out to 7 different drummers from the extreme metal world to handle one song each: “Without any references or guides by way of programmed drums, etc, all of the drummers involved received their tracks from the band, drum-less, and were instructed to play whatever they wanted.”
The list of those drummers is impressive:
Kevin Paradis (ex-Benighted, Aronious)
Derek Roddy (ex-Hate Eternal, Serpent’s Rise)
Dariusz ‘Daray’ Brzozowski (Dimmu Borgir)
Pierce Williams (ex-Skeletal Remains)
Marco Pitruzzella (Six Feet Under, Sleep Terror)
Zack Simmons (Goatwhore, Acid Bath)
I intentionally left out the 7th drummer from the list so I could name him separately. The song he’s on is my next pick for today’s collection, and it was one I especially wanted to hear because the drummer on “A Pact Made In Flesh n Wine” is Thomas Haywood, the very engaging owner of Redefining Darkness Records, whom I’ve worked with a lot on NCS over many years. But, ignorant me, I didn’t know he’d ever been a drummer! Turns out Thomas knows what he’s doing, providing one sequence of vivid drum-fills after another.
Angerot know what they’re doing too, creating a dismal and dangerous experience. The guitars slowly slither, moan, and scream while the bass provides a subterranean rumble and the vocals issue malicious growls and tortured screams. The stark contrast between the stricken crawl of the music and Thomas‘ electrifying drumwork is one of the track’s signal features.
Eventually Angerot take that crushing and hopeless agony they’ve created and torque its pain through a shrill and screaming guitar solo, and then continue the intensity with bursts of fast-jabbing fretwork and yet another attention-seizing guitar solo.
Seofan will be released by Redefining Darkness on July 11th. At Bandcamp you can also check out three more songs from the album.
https://angerot.bandcamp.com/album/seofon
https://www.facebook.com/Angerot/
MORDBEAR (U.S.)
Now it’s time for a block of bear stuff, beginning with Mordbear, which I guess means “death bear”? Which is perceptive, because although bears look cute they always mean death to something or someone who gets in their way at the wrong time. I mean, I’m no expert, but that’s my takeaway from years of reading everything I can get my hands on about bear maulings and watching videos of them scooping salmon out of icy Alaskan streams like there’s no tomorrow.
Where was I? Oh yeah, Mordbear.
They’re a trio from the Pacific Northwest (Portland), which is why I paid attention to the first song revealed from their self-titled EP. The band say that the inspiration for that song, “Like the Dead,” was “a surreal conversation with a hippie veterinarian, recounting a theory about global warming, rabid bats, and a Southern California zombie outbreak.” Okay, sure.
So inspired, Mordbear have made a song that is itself surreal. Rhythmically, it’s a big head-mover, propelled by beefy bass-lines and neck-cracking beats, but the channel-separated guitar harmonies are acid-fried, and the heavy-reverbed, sky-surfing vocals are equally tripped-out (and a well-earned exception to our porous rule about singing).
There’s a psyched-out guitar solo in the song too, a masterful piece of squalling and squirming ecstasy. And on top of all this, those lysergic acid riffs turn out to be big hooks too.
These must be the slow zombies of the apocalypse, not the ones that race like burning rats. I would much prefer the slow ones.
Mordbear will be released by Dipterid Records on June 6th.
https://mordbear.bandcamp.com/album/ep
https://www.instagram.com/mordbear_music/
BEAR MACE (U.S.)
People who go places where they might encounter mordbears or who attempt to storm the U.S. Capitol are encouraged to pack some bear mace (but you can’t pack it in your carry-on luggage).
Bear mace is nasty stuff. The key ingredient is an oily compound of the chemicals that makes hot peppers hot (capsaicinoids). It burns. Even though it’s more likely some idiots will spray their own face than the face of a charging bear, I’d probably give it a shot before the other recommended means of dealing with a proximate bear — playing dead.
Where was I? Oh yeah, Bear Mace.
They obviously picked that name with a purpose, because this Chicago band’s music is damned nasty too. Though honestly they conjure visions of the charging bear itself rather than the vaporous hot fog used to fend it off. And other metaphorical images also come to mind, because the song they launched last week, “Drown Them In Their Blood,” is a creation of many facets.
The riffing is a furious and feverish assault, a violent but hook-y convulsion. As the song proceeds, the fretwork remains feverish but becomes even more vicious after the drums take off in a hammering surge. Bear Mace also layer in crawling melodic harmonies that sound dismal (and drugged) and a fret-melter of a guitar solo that sounds downright jubilant. Perhaps needless to say, the growling, roaring, and rabidly howling vocals conjure visions of… an enraged bear!
This song is off a new Bear Mace album entitled Slaves Of The Wolf, and it will arrive on June 6th. Two more tracks from the album are up at Bandcamp.
https://bearmace.bandcamp.com/album/slaves-of-the-wolf
https://www.facebook.com/bearmace1
BLUDGEONED BY DEFORMITY (U.S.)
What better way for people to follow up getting sprayed by Bear Mace than by getting Bludgeoned by Deformity? The answer is, there’s no better way. I’m sure you deserve it.
I paid attention to this next song, which is off the band’s debut EP Epoch of Immorality, because of the lineup: vocalist Devin Swank (Sanguisugabogg, Tomb Sentinel, Earthburner, Immortal Torment, Ablation), bassist Ethan Buttery (Jivebomb, Sinister Feeling), drummer Adam Jarvis (Pig Destroyer, Misery Index, End Reign, Fulgora, Lock Up, Scour), and guitarists Bradon Studebaker (Immortal Torment) and Andre Pickens (Tsuris). You see what I mean?
What they’ve cooked up for “False Deliverance” is a nightmare gauntlet for listeners, part earthquake, part avalanche, part war-zone, part pile-driver, part spectral freakout, all of it coupled with fanatical roars and berserk screams. It’s definitely a bludgeoner, but it’s also a mind-bender, especially in the shrieking mania provided by lead guitars — and the rapid shifts in the drumming and riffage.
Epoch of Immortality will be released on June 6th by Iron Fortress Records.
https://ironfortressrecords.bandcamp.com/album/epoch-of-immortality
http://www.ironfortressrecords.com/
OSI AND THE JUPITER (U.S.)
I guess this closing song for today’s collection will give you a dose of whiplash after that last selection. It’s beautifully dreamlike (a haunting dream, to be sure) rather than destructive. It’s also the third time today that I’ve made an exception to our swiss-cheese rule about singing.
“Snake Healer” brings together deft acoustic picking, wailing electric guitars that sound like a lonesome train whistle, soulfully sad and earnestly yearning cello melodies, and somber singing. The combined effect is entrancing, and the kind of mystical incantation that could bring ghosts forth from their hiding places.
If you don’t know, Osi and the Jupiter is the dark-folk project of Sean Kratz (aka Sean Deth) and the cellist Kakophonix — and now the band also includes bassist Elyse. The song is from a new album on the Eisenwald label, about which more details will be forthcoming.
https://osifolk.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/osifolk/