(written by Islander)
For these Saturday roundups I’ve been trying to include a minimum of six picks. I only have four today because I’m leaving the house early with my wife to get breakfast with another couple at a very cool place that’s an hour drive away. Bedtime last night was also unexpectedly late due to a certain excruciating 15-inning baseball playoff game and its delirious aftermath.
Being even more limited today than usual, there was a risk my picks would be even more random than usual, even more like throwing darts at a squirming mass of targets and hoping the few I hurled would impale winners. To mitigate the risk, I picked bands who had won me over repeatedly in the past. As I hope you’ll agree, that turned out to be a good strategy.
BLOOD RED THRONE (Norway)
Today we leap forward with a lyric video for the vicious first single from the forthcoming 12th album by Blood Red Throne.
Yes, vicious — from the viciously drilling riffs to the viciously battering drums and the viciously bellowing roars and barking-mad screams. It’s a borderline berserk experience, but it also makes room for head-butting jolts, head-moving riffage that feverishly throbs, soloing freakouts, and beautifully swirling melodic accents. A hell of a good high-octane way to get your heart fired up on this morning, or any other.
The name of the new album is Siltskin. The cover artwork was created by Giannis Nakos (Remedy Art Design). It will be released on December 5th by Soulseller Records.
https://soulsellerrecords.bandcamp.com/album/siltskin
https://soulsellerrecords.aisamerch.com
https://www.facebook.com/BloodRedThroneOfficial
https://www.instagram.com/bloodredthroneofficial
PHOBOCOSM (Canada)
Next up is “Sempiternal Penance,” the first advance track from Phobocosm‘s next album, Gateway. It immediately throws listeners into a sonic war zone of blistering drums, maniacal circle-saw riffing, and deep, imperious growls. In the midst of and in between the swarming and bludgeoning chaos, the guitars also seem to wail in displays of eldritch ecstasy and to groan in agony.
The song also inflicts bouts of brutally booming trauma, just as imperious and cold as the cavernous gutturals but far more dangerous to spinal coherence, as well as bursts of jackhammering fretwork-malice and boulder-like drum rumbles. A thoroughly savage and thoroughly scintillating experience….
Gateway will be released by Dark Descent on November 28th. The cover art was created by Lauri Laaksonen (Desolate Shrine, Convocation, Pestilent Hex).
P.S. Phobocosm guitarist Samuel Dufour said this about the new album: “We view it as the closing of a chapter for the band. Not that our future material will be completely different from our existing material, far from it, but we have decided to do things a little differently next time around by adding new elements that haven’t appeared in our music before, exploring different dynamics and experimenting with a new tuning.”
https://darkdescentrecords.bandcamp.com/album/gateway
https://www.darkdescentrecords.com/shop/
https://www.facebook.com/Phobocosm/
HORNWOOD FELL (Italy)
At least for my tastes, the black metal of Hornwood Fell has been consistently interesting, in part because it has been consistently unpredictable in small or large ways. Until last week they had released two singles this year, “Il Rituale” in February and “Memories” in June (you can find my reviews of those here), and on October 7th they released a third one, “Ecfrasi“. The new one makes me triply glad they’ve decided to release individual songs every few months rather than hoarding up everything until they have an EP or album’s worth.
“Ecfrasi” opens with brutally gouging but also feverishly deranged riffing in front of methodically popping snare-beats; segues into a phase of dissonant notes that eerily ring and warp above excavating bass machinery; and segues again into an exhilarating phase of darting and swirling fretwork.
The drums eventually go mad; those siren-like tones wail in distress and seem to plead for help; but the low-end destruction offers none, as the drums and bass continue to thunder, to tunnel through stone, and to fire like mortars. The layered guitars continue to contort in disturbing yet also bizarrely spellbinding ways until near the end, when the music briefly becomes ethereal and apparitional.
No vocals in this one, but I don’t think you’ll even notice they’re not there.
https://hornwoodfell.bandcamp.com/album/ecfrasi
LYSERGIC (Portugal)
Lysergic, which has principally been the musical vehicle of guitarist/vocalist João Corceiro, is a newer band than the three that have preceded them today, but their debut album Black and Blue (released in January of this year) made a very favorable impression on this listener, so much so that I paid attention when I saw they’d recently released a new single and a well-made video for it.
This song, “Superior Form,” will get your blood pumping, and might get it spraying too. João’s scorching vocals, and particularly his extended screams, do sound like furious sonic blood-spray. The furiously swirling, rapidly pulsating, and feverishly scissoring riffage is also electric, and the song is also a heavyweight slugger, thanks to the rhythm section’s work.
I’ll call out two other features of the song that add to its interest level. First, it includes off-kilter, Gojira-esque grooves, and the interplay between the instrumentalists gets decidedly proggy (and head-hooking) just past the half-way point. Second, unexpectedly but successfully, the song detours into a lilting piano instrumental. The piano continues to beautifully ripple even after the band return to pound, to slash, and to scream — an audio marriage of beauty and the beast.
I understand that this is a song from an upcoming Lysergic album planned for 2026, which is good news.
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/lysergicband
Instagram: https://bit.ly/instaLysergic
Facebook: https://bit.ly/fbLysergic
Spotify: https://spoti.fi/4fYSPTw