(written by Islander)
Welcome to another Sunday column focused (mainly) on black metal. This one goes pretty deep underground, with music from four debut releases, leavened with songs from two bands whose discography is more extensive.
I’m going to start with reviews of an album and an EP, to make sure I have time to say what I want to say about them, and then turn to a group of individual songs and videos.
UKHU PACHA (U.S.)
On the surface, before you hear a single note, Ukhu Pacha and the project’s debut album Yanantin are unusual. Though Ukhu Pacha is based in Minneapolis, the home country of the band’s solo creator is Peru, and the music (as he explained to me) “is inspired by Incan cosmology and history, solar worship, and themes that honor the beauty of the Andes and its peoples.”
All the lyrics are in Spanish and Quechua, one of the indigenous languages in Peru and other countries in the Andes. Ukhu Pacha is itself a Quechuan phrase rooted in ancient lore (its potential meanings, including its appearance as a name for the Incan netherworld or “inner world”, are discussed in this article I found). The name taken for himself by the project’s creator, Supay Yawar, is also rooted in Incan mythology as a type of spirit.
The Bandcamp page for Yanantin includes the Quechuan words “Intipaq takikuna”; based on a bit of googling this seems to mean “Songs for the sun”. On the same page Supay Yawar describes himself as “Conjurador del encantamiento de oro” (conjurer of golden spells) and “Invocador de recuerdos ancestrales” (summoner of ancestral memories). And of course you can see the photographic image used on the album cover.
So, even though formulations of indigenous black metal from elsewhere in the world have increasingly gained recognition, Uhku Pacha is still unusual on the surface. What lies beneath the surface? What are the features of what Supay Yawar calls “Bronce black metal”?
In some of its aspects Yanantin will resonate with fans of raw black metal. The guitar tone is abrasive, hostile enough when tremolo-picked (as it often is) to shred the senses of people who prefer a more pristine production. The riffing often combines a high, piercing whine and a darker and lower swarm, but both are ravaging.
Yet, though riotous and near-cacophonous at times, the riffing seizes attention and has a strong emotional quotient, ranging from fierce jubilation to desperation and bleakness, and lots of other feelings in between. And it’s not always tremolo-picked, but sometimes punk-like and feral, or bursting open in thrash chords, or even generating a post-punk pulse.
Moreover, the melodic vibrancy of the lead-guitar spears out of the music in striking fashion, frantically whirling and spiraling and sometimes sounding like whistles or ancient flutes or feverish fiddles or romping accordions or rippling mandolins (or maybe that’s what they really are!). In my mind, those lead instrumentals are the album’s strongest feature.
Similarly, although the drumming sometimes erupts in blasts, at times it also sounds primitive, or like the clatter of galloping hooves (and there’s a bit of drum soloing in “Macana” that will really pop your eyes wide open). And though the scathing and piercing guitars dominate the songs, they don’t completely drown out the bass lines, which are notably nimble.
The almost relentless guitar spectacle doesn’t drown out the vocals either — they’re viciously snarling and growling, roaring and clamoring, and yelling in torment in the background, very much like an evil spirit.
I don’t know enough about Peruvian folk music or instrumentation to have a good idea about the extent to which those have influenced the melodies of these songs (though the sample in the album’s final minute clearly comes from there), as opposed to the lore alone. And while the music does have aspects that sound ancient, those aspects sometimes spawned reminiscences of European medieval music.
My main take-away is that the songs sound mythic, epic, explosive, and elaborate. They’re mainly a head-long race of exuberant and exhilarating intensity, interspersed with moments of grandeur and melancholy. I haven’t spent enough time with the album to be certain of which song is my favorite, which one to suggest you try out as a taste-test, but at this point I lean toward the album’s longest track, the fantastic “El Símbolo Eterno“, or the also-fantastic closer “Victoria de las Aguas“.
But hell, I think the whole album is fantastic and hope you’ll indulge all of it.
Yanantin was digitally released on June 3rd. I understand that it will soon be released on tape by Nithstang Productions and on vinyl by Obscurant Visions.
https://ukhupacha.bandcamp.com/album/yanantin
VAITARANA (Germany)
Vaitrana caught my eye because it is a duo consisting of people whose work in other bands also caught my attention (and that of lots of other fans) — Christian Kolf (Valborg, Owl) and Tentakel P. (Omega Infinity, Todtgelichter). What they’re doing in this new band can be categorized as Post Black Metal. However, the name of their debut EP — Sunsets / Waterfalls — and the cover image they used can be misleading. As described by Total Dissonance Worship, the label that recently released it along with Zeitgeister:
“Behind the simplistic cover and unassuming song titles, lurks an equally blistering and euphorically triumphant wall of sound, which is laced with Christian‘s sensibility for emotional depth and grand melody as well as the relentless drumming of Tentakel P.”
That cover art and those song titles really are a head-fake, which you’ll figure out right quick as soon as the vivid fretwork vibrations of “Summer” begin, quickly followed by a long scorching scream and thundering low-end tumult.
The shattering intensity of the screams never abates, and the guitars really do create a fast-moving wall of elaborately layered sound, a dense wall but not so dense as to obscure the lead-guitar lightning or the earth-quaking avalanche down below.
“Sunsets” is so gloriously breathtaking that I thought maybe Vaitrana would change course in “Waterfalls” and provide something more in line with the peaceful mood of the EP’s cover art, but nope, these falls are like Niagara.
This second song is just as eye-popping as “Summer“, just as humongous and hurtling, just as expansive in its impact, the lead-guitar tones just as ecstatically dazzling, the vocals just as terrifyingly unhinged. It might be a little more dark and disconcerting in its moods, but jaws will still drop.
https://totaldissonanceworship.bandcamp.com/album/sunsets-waterfalls
https://zeitgeister.bandcamp.com/album/sunsets-waterfalls
IANTHIN (France)
Now I’ll turn to some individual songs, beginning with one that’s included on the forthcoming debut album of Ianthin. As described by the Hippalectryon label, it’s “the brainchild of Jérôme Bouquet, also a member of Ergholae Somptator (a French extreme metal duo with four albums released).”
On this debut Ianthin album, Pinacles austères, Bouquet takes care of almost everything (keyboards, drums, guitar, bass, vocals, and the French lyrics), with assistance from Maxime Jeune performing trumpet on “Il pleut” and from choral vocalists. Hippalectryon further explains:
Ianthin’s music has its roots in metal, particularly doom and black, but takes the liberty of exploring other universes, and there are reminiscences of prog, pop, jazz or instrumental music… Above all, it’s about exploring the ambiences and sounds that are unique to Ianthin, trying not to restrict itself, to experiment without losing the listener.
The first advance track from the album, “Ô géant“, certainly didn’t lose me — not even close — though the album’s cover art may lead you to mis-guess what it sounds like. The song immediately creates an enormous contrast between moaning and jagged granite-heavy riffing and gossamer-light keys that ring and ripple in the music’s upper reaches, and then between brutally assaulting drums and strangely whining guitar-leads.
The music feverishly throbs, eerily wails, and mystically darts, intercepted by gigantic crashes, bestial near-gagging snarls, rabid howls, and deep infernal proclamations. The combined effect of all the wildly varying intersecting tones and mercurial maneuvers is bizarre, though rocking beats and the main riff’s feverish pulsations help hold all the mind-bending escapades together (barely).
I found the song thoroughly fascinating in all its discombobulating avant-garde adventures, and carefully plotted and executed even though it’s thoroughly demented — a fine example of “what the fuck did I just hear?!?”
The album will be released on July 11th by Hippalectryon on CD, cassette tape, and digital formats.
https://ianthin.bandcamp.com/album/pinacles-aust-res
SUMERIAN TOMBS (Germany)
Next up is a lyric video for “Epitaph In Blood“, a song from Sumerian Tombs‘ latest album Age of Eternal Night. The album was released in April of this year by Ván Records, but it was one of many April releases I just didn’t get around to checking out. This particular song also features a guest vocal appearance by Niklas from the German band Horn.
Though the song is a powerful head-mover, it also powerfully creates an atmosphere of daunting supernatural grandeur and vampiric menace. And speaking of vampiric menace, the vocals manifest in that way too. When the drums erupt and the riffing boils, they seem to capture the ravenous might of the undead creatures whose rising the lyrics portray.
The song also includes eerily but beautifully trilling guitar melodies, esoteric melodies that invoke Sumerian lore, extravagant singing, and bass-pistons that will compulsively drive the listener’s pulse, all of it elevated to theatrically dramatic heights by symphonic augmentations.
The video was created by Chris Cranium, making use of the album artwork created by Benjamin Harff (Kodex Barbaricus).
https://sumeriantombs-vanrecords.bandcamp.com/album/age-of-eternal-night
https://www.facebook.com/SumerianTombs/
LYUAOIEN (US/UK)
I continue to keep my eyes peeled for new releases by the UK label Centipede Abyss, and their next one (forthcoming in July) is the debut release of Lyuaoien, a band whose trans-Atlantic lineup includes members of label-mates Ar’lyxkq’wr, Zvylpwkua, Cave, Vertebrae Fetish Totem, and Ambulacrum (among others). The album’s name is No Sanctuary.
The first advance track from the album, the near-10-minute “Wandering Human Tomb“, is a real head-spinner. Drummer Jared Moran (aka |z|) quickly threatens to steal the show, going flat-out, but everyone else threatens to steal the show too, surrounding his riotously dynamic performance with a plethora of screeching, scathing, whistling, and wailing guitars, idiosyncratic bass contortions, and bursts of asylum-quality vocal delirium (they sound like the whole asylum is up in arms).
There’s an improvisational quality to all this bizarrely textured madness. Except for the sharp-toned percussive acrobatics, the music is like a head-whipping morass of mental instability, each instrumental feature off on its own crazed and criminal frolic. In case you begin to wonder if anyone will get back on their meds before the song ends, they don’t.
Centipede Abyss will release No Sanctuary on July 3rd, and they recommend it FFO Deathspell Omega, DSKNT, and Chaos Echoes. And no, I don’t know how to pronounce the band’s name.
LYUAOIEN is:
∞ – vocals (Apothecary, Ar’lyxkq’wr)
∇ – guitars (Zvylpwkua, Act of Entropy)
|z| – drums (Cave, Vertebrae Fetish Totem)
∮ – bass (Ukakuja, Ambulacrum)
https://centipedeabyss.bandcamp.com/album/no-sanctuary
JORDFÄST (Sweden)
And finally for today I picked a video for the first single from Blodsdåd och hor, a new album by the Swedish black metal band Jordfäst. As its name signifies, that single, “Dit Gudarna Trälar Är pt.3“, is actually the third part of a four-part work on the album. Before that work begins, the album starts with another four-part work named “Ett altare av skärvor“.
“Dit Gudarna Trälar Är” is translated as “Where gods are thralls”, and the entire work apparently takes listeners on a journey through centuries of Swedish history “shaped by the steel and iron industry and defined by relentless warfare.”
I’m rapidly running out of time, so I’ll just say this about “Dit Gudarna Trälar Är pt.3“: It’s moods are very dark, sometimes seeming like the soundtrack to a staggering march up the airless heights of those daunting mountains in the video. But it also breaks open in muscular surges and deliriously freaked-out soloing, becoming both ferocious and hellishly supernatural.
Before the end, the song begins to sound feral, and it will get heads pumping hard too. Through it all, the wide-ranging vocals are fanatically ferocious themselves.
Blodsdåd och hor translates to “bloodshed and whoredom”. It will be out on July 25th via Black Lion Records.
https://orcd.co/blodsdad-och-hor
https://jordfst.bandcamp.com/album/blodsd-d-och-hor
https://www.facebook.com/jordfastband