SHADES OF BLACK: 1914, KAECK, KORP, MALAKHIM, OUTLAW, BLACNK, VÖRNIR

(written by Islander)

Welcome to another bloody blackened Sunday at our site. In deciding what to include today I fell into something like a fugue state, by happenstance finding one relentlessly intense song after another, and so engulfed by the experiences that I didn’t even think about trying to create some kind of musical detour before the end.

To be clear, you’re not about to get blown out by blizzards of raw black metal. All of these songs have vital melodic components, but even the melodies channel emotional intensity of differing kinds. But to be further clear, all the songs should get your hearts pumping and muscles throbbing too. (There’s also a bonus entry at the end.)

 

1914 (Ukraine)

The Ukrainian band 1914 have announced a new album named Viribus Unitis (“With United Forces”). It will be released by Napalm Records on November 14th. On specific tracks it includes guest vocals by Christopher Scott of Precious Death, Aaron Stainthorpe of My Dying Bride, and Jerome Reuter of Rome. The cover art was created by Vladimir “Smerdulak” Chebakov.

As they have done on previous releases, 1914 again take events of World War I as their setting, a reminder of the senseless slaughter of war which continues to plague humankind (and of course 1914‘s own country), but this time they also focus on “themes of camaraderie, endurance, and the emotional landscapes of those who endured the horrors of trench warfare.” The band released this statement about the album, which we’ll quote in full:

Viribus Unitis is about shared strength and the idea that true power lies in unity. Alone, one may fall – together, we can prevail and achieve our goals: Defeat the enemy, escape captivity, survive, and return to your family. We return with a new story. A story of life and military valor of a soldier who encountered the Great War in his native city of Lviv and went through it all. Side by side, with joint efforts of Ukrainians, Poles, Hungarians, Slovenes, Czechs, Slovaks, Jews, Croats, Bosniaks, Germans – all the peoples who made up the vast Austro-Hungarian Empire. Empires did not count people – they threw them into meat grinders where survival was only possible through unity. By helping one another. By sacrificing yourself for the sake of your loved ones and comrades.

This is a story of being blinded by war and the grandeur of the empire, of the heat of battle, realization and acceptance of reality, awakening, changing values, captivity, and liberation. It is a story of unbreakable will to live and hope amidst a terrifying and bloody war. It is a story of a new little life that changes all the rules and forces one to see the familiar from a different perspective. It is a story of love. It is a story of loss and death. Viribus Unitis is when pain, death, loss, loneliness, and fear encircle you. But you’re still unbroken!”

photo credit: Sofiia Ruda

Based on the song titles the album follows its Ukrainian protagonist from 1914 through 1918. The first song the band released last week is named “1916 (The Südtirol Offensive)“. They described its subject matter in these terms:

From May 15 to June 10, 1916, the Italian Front saw one of its most intense clashes: the Battle of Asiago, also known as the Trentino Offensive. The Austro-Hungarian army launched a massive surprise attack, hoping to crush Italian forces and break into the Venetian plains. Nearly 200 battalions and 2000 guns, including 280 heavy artillery pieces, were amassed in Trentino. The Italians, caught off guard, were pushed back – but held the line with fierce resistance. The combined toll of 230,000 casualties on both sides underscores the staggering human cost of the campaign. A brutal reminder of the mountain warfare that defined this front.

It’s staggering to contemplate 230,000 casualties in a single battle, but other worse horrors followed this one in the First World War.

As the animated video depicts devastating bombardments, the maneuvers of the combatants, hailstorms of bullets, and landscapes littered with the bloody dead (stalked and swept by the scythe-wielder), the song also captures the devastating intensity and rampant horrors of mechanized warfare.

The drums often sound like cannonades and machine-gun fire. The vocals sound like the haughty roars and vicious snarls of the grim reaper himself, and they also vent martial gang yells. In the upper reaches the guitars vividly ring out frenzy and pain; they (and the bass) also brutally stomp and grimly groan, and feverishly throb like opened veins. The music sends up fanfares of terrible grandeur and the guitars whir in signs of turbulence and torment as Death does its red work.

A really tremendous song.

P.S. Today happens to be the 34th anniversary of Ukraine’s Declaration of Independence from the Soviet Union. Slava Ukraini! Heroiam slava!

https://lnk.to/1914-ViribusUnitis
https://www.indiemerchstore.com/collections/1914
https://x1914x.bandcamp.com/album/viribus-unitis
https://www.facebook.com/1914OfficialPage

 

KAECK (Netherlands)

From Ukraine we move to Netherlands. Based on past experience I had solid reasons to expect that new music from Kaeck would be intense, but the first song from their forthcoming third album was even more overpowering than I expected.

“Paterhexolimaat” has no prelude; it immediately discharges frenzied riffing, symphonic sweep, and ugly snarls, with the measured rhythm of the drums as the only sign of sanity. The music sounds dire, but also becomes sinister and ominous as the pacing shifts to a lurching stomp and the vocals explode in screams.

There’s a brief interlude that’s even more otherworldly and dark, followed by a percussive explosion, berserk vocals choked with grit, and vast swaths of flowing organ-like melody that’s dreadful to behold and chilling to the spine — a profoundly bleak and frightening experience.

Gruwelijk Onthaal is the name of the new Kaeck album. It will be released on September 18th by Folter Records. It features cover art by Dylan Humphries in a handmade woodcut style and “shows Kaeck arriving on Earth, stepping on the broken souls and corpses of humanity”. As the band’s Jan Kruitwagen has stated, “All of the tracks describe different ways Kaeck enters the souls of mankind, choking all the life out of us.”

https://folterrecords.bandcamp.com/album/gruwelijk-onthaal
https://www.facebook.com/Kaeckhorde

 

KORP (Sweden)

From Netherlands we move to Sweden with a video for a song from Korp‘s first album in more than 20 years, and it’s a hell of a strong way to announce their resurrection — though I’m late to discover it.

Aptly named “Furious Tempest Rise“, the song seizes attention immediately with furiously blasting drums and an exhilarating tremolo riff which delivers a rapidly rising and falling melody that’s anguished in mood. Having so effectively seized attention, the band shift, both jolting the listener and inflicting hornet-swarm savagery, fronted by screams of equal savagery.

And they keep switching things up, snapping at the listener’s neck and drilling through skulls but also rising up with further whirring doses of electrifying lead-guitar melody, some of which sway and swirl like spirits out of the East, as well as continuing to vent bloody-minded vocal intensity and to fire blistering percussive attacks. Korp also grimly stagger and stomp, creating an experience that’s brutish and doomed, distraught and miserable.

Or to put it more succinctly, it’s a very multi-faceted and dynamic song — but pretty damned intense in every one of its phases.

The name of Korp‘s new album is And Darker It Shall Become. It will be released by Grind to Death Records on September 5th. Check out the video of Korp performing the song below.

https://grindtodeathrecords.bandcamp.com/album/and-darker-it-shall-become
https://www.facebook.com/korpmetal

 

MALAKHIM (Sweden)

Staying in Sweden, we’ll follow Korp with “Solar Crucifixion“, a song from Malakhim‘s forthcoming second album And In Our Hearts the Devil Sings.

Unlike the last couple of songs, this one does have an overture, one that’s well-calculated to create a blood-freezing, unearthly atmosphere. And really, everything that follows doesn’t sound earthly either. In the upper reaches, the music gloriously sweeps and sparkles, very much like the sonic version of a dangerous solar flare, while the rabid vocals and furiously hurtling drums are an order of magnitude more dangerous.

The song’s sweeping and majestic expanse is almost unrelenting, but its melodic mood becomes more dire, more driven toward despair, and the vocals are never less than terrorizing. When the band do briefly quell the intensity to make room for the ragged ring of solo guitars, the music just sounds even more haunted and miserable.

Even when the full band return, they take the song to very dark places before a closing finale of dreadful intensity, embellished by high-flying but gritty yells of utmost torment. Throughout the song, the drummer does a very effective job of accenting the changes, nothing terribly fancy but very well-calculated.

The album will be released by Iron Bonehead Productions on October 31st. It features cover art by K Pavleska of Mors Ultima Ratio Art.

https://ironbonehead.de/
https://ironboneheadproductions.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/malakhimofficial

 

OUTLAW (Brazil-Germany)

The next song, a really electrifying one, is the first single from Opus Mortis, a new album by Outlaw.

“Through the Infinite Darkness” is melodically rich, thanks in part to quickly seductive dual-guitar harmonies that stand out, but it’s also ferocious, thanks to the unchained, throat-cutting barbarity of the screaming and snarling vocals and the vicious blasts and chops of the drums.

Outlaw also give the song an epic cast with stratospheric melodic sweeps that are both grand and sorrowful, sometimes laced with ghostly high-toned quivering sounds. It’s the kind of music that picks up a listener and carries them far away high above the earth, melded with vocals of truly terrifying intensity and drum variations that stick their hooks in the pulse rate and don’t let go.

Opus Mortis will be released on October 31st by AOP Records. Commenting on the song below, the band intriguingly states: “This song is closer to what we presented before, and that’s why we wanted to release it first. The rest of the album is a journey to something unexplored by us until now.”

https://outlaw218.bandcamp.com/album/opus-mortis
https://www.facebook.com/OutlawBlackMetal

 

BLACNK (Australia)

I stumbled across Blacnk last year for the first time thanks to noticing their name in the roster of releases planned by the Centipede Abyss label. Last year brought us the album Sleeping Under Clouds of Gripping Anguish, and because Blacnk allows no grass to grow under its busy feet a new album will be released this year too, again by Centipede Abyss. The name of the new one is Hypnagogia II.

The first song revealed from the new album is “Corpse Party“. As you’ll discover, the name makes sense. The rhythm lurches like a golem and the crazed vocals are caustic enough to melt flesh like a strong acid, but there’s something strangely exultant (and definitely supernatural) in what the fast-flickering guitars and haughty, blaring keys are doing up in the rafters. It sounds like the soundtrack to a haunted cathedral, where undead fiends have come out to play.

The drums begin to frolic a bit too, even as the surround-sound music and blistering vocals continue to cause minds to swim and flesh to melt. But the party does briefly get out of hand a couple of times, with blast-beats surging and the music frantically roiling and burning, before we return to the haunted and hideous cathedral Blacnk has made for its cemetery occupants.

Hypnagogia II is set for release on September 25th. Centipede Abyss recommends it FFO Oranssi Pazazu, Dissolve Patterns, and Immortal. The creepy artwork is by Inentropy.

https://centipedeabyss.bandcamp.com/album/hypnagogia-ii
https://www.facebook.com/theblacnk/

 

VÖRNIR (Int’l)

I guess I’ll call this a bonus. It’s a full stream of Vörnir‘s debut album is Av Hädanfärd Krönt. I wrote about the only song available for streaming in last week’s SHADES OF BLACK (here), noting that the band appeared to be an international collaboration among some very talented and fairly well-known musicians.

At that time, I knew the album would be co-released by Mystiskaos and Amor Fati but didn’t know when. Lo and behold, it was fully sprung upon us just yesterday without much fanfare. It includes five tracks, the last of which is nearly 17 minutes long. I haven’t listened to all of the album and so I’m not in a position to give it even a cursory review. But I’ve listened to enough of it to be convinced the time will be well spent. So here it is:

https://vornir.bandcamp.com/album/av-h-danf-rd-kr-nt