SEEN AND HEARD: TESTAMENT, LYCHGATE, THE RUINS OF BEVERAST

(written by Islander)

With only one premiere on the calendar today and having completed it, I thought I ought to do something else before beginning to think about tomorrow’s usual roundup of new songs and videos. The something else I decided upon is this brief head-start on that roundup.

 

TESTAMENT (U.S.)

I’m sure there’s something else I could have used to start us off that’s even more foreign to our site than Testament covering Metallica (maybe a Taylor Swift feature?). We just don’t normally devote our attention to bands with profiles as big as those two, preferring instead to help people discover music they might otherwise overlook.

But in this case I would have felt guilty if I hadn’t spouted off about Testament’s rendition of “Seek & Destroy“, because I’ve enjoyed the hell out of it — repeatedly. As one friend commented, “Kinda funny to hear the most Metallica-like band cover Metallica. But I love them both so I’ll take it.” Yeah, that’s pretty much what I thought too.

In addition, I actually think (blasphemously) that this cover is better than the original. And the clips in the accompanying video are cool too.

This cover song is included in No Life ‘Til Leather – A Tribute To Metallica’s Kill ‘Em All, which will be released on November 14th by Silver Lining Music. Here’s the complete track list:

1. Hit The Lights (TAILGUNNER)
2. The Four Horsemen (THE ALMIGHTY)
3. Motorbreath (SOEN)
4. Jump In The Fire (TYGERS OF PAN TANG)
5. (Anesthesia) – Pulling Teeth (DAVID ELLEFSON)
6. Whiplash (MOTÖRHEAD)
7. Phantom Lord (SAXON)
8. No Remorse (DIAMOND HEAD)
9. Seek & Destroy (TESTAMENT)
10. Metal Militia (RAVEN)

https://lnk.to/NoLifeTilLeather_ATributeToMetallicasKillEmAll
https://www.facebook.com/testamentlegions/

 

LYCHGATE (UK)

Having spotlighted Testament covering Metallica, let’s get to something more in line with our usual subterranean focus around here.

What’s next is a near-10-minute mindbender from Lychgate named “Hive of Parasites“. It seizes attention right damned fast with a rapidly swirling, vividly ringing, and slowly slithering fusion of piercing and provocative sounds; then proceeds to massively heave and stomp; then further proceeds to ecstatically blare, feverishly skitter, and riotously hammer.

Crazed screams and bay-at-the-moon howls explode from the swarming and slaughtering instrumental jubilation, which includes woodwind and hornlike instrumentation that wouldn’t sound out of place in a big jazz band except for the fact that it’s all so deranged.

The pacing shifts without warning, and the mood of the multiply layered music changes too, becoming more chilling, more sinister, and more perilous, but also more violently berserk, especially when an insane guitar solo spurts forth above ruthlessly blasting beats.

And that’s not all! Also without warning, the drums vanish and the music becomes dreamy, sultry, and surreal, drawing from a different well of jazz influences, with notes pinging, shimmering, and drifting like smoke. (The bass seductively meanders too.)

Of course, Lychgate don’t end the song that way, fiendishly preferring to give listeners one last sudden shock (a shock I haven’t entirely spoiled, because you don’t know when it’s going to happen).

“Hive of Parasites” is one of 9 songs on a new Lychgate album named Precipice that’s set for release by Debemur Morti Productions on December 19th. I could hardly be more eager to hear the rest of it.

https://lychgate.bandcamp.com/album/precipice
https://www.facebook.com/lychgate
https://www.instagram.com/lychgateofficial

 

THE RUINS OF BEVERAST (Germany)

Like Lychgate, The Ruins of Beverast is a name that seizes my own attention much like the unexpected strike of a viper during a pleasant morning stroll. Well, I mean I wasn’t exactly strolling through new music this morning — scurrying is more like it — but when I noticed this new song and lyric video from them I did halt as if pierced by fangs.

The song’s named is “Alpha Fluids“. It begins with a cinematic overture that’s mysterious and intriguing, but soon enough launches into a furiously hammering throb surrounded by frantically swarming frequencies. Scalding vocals sound like a sonic amalgam of poison and fire, and they trade off with dramatic singing and harrowing screams. Scampering beats trade off with double-bass rumbles, and the music boisterously blares as well as swirls and swarms. In the midst of this sonic kaleidoscope the bass beats like an adrenaline-fueled heart.

Near the end, while nearly everything is in exhilarating riot-mode, the music also eerily and woozily wails, voiced in near theremin-like quivering tones. It makes for a great finish.

“Alpha Fluids” will appear on the band’s seventh album Tempelschlaf. It will be released on January 9th in the coming new year by Ván Records, which calls the music “the cineastic incarnation of audial nightmares.”

https://van-records.com/
https://www.facebook.com/the.ruins.of.beverast/