(written by Islander)
As I often do, I made a list of links for new songs and videos I wanted to check out in anticipation of this Saturday’s column, i.e., things that had surfaced or that I had noticed since last weekend. Having done that, I counted the number of links, and there were 69 of them (I swear that number is completely coincidental!), including a few I noticed for the first time this morning. It wasn’t even a complete list; I had a bunch of other tabs open on my desktop that I didn’t add to the list because I knew time was running short.
I recognize this is odd behavior. Why make a list that long when you know you won’t make it through even a quarter of the items? Why make a list that long when you know it will only knot up your brain in deciding which of them to check out? I have no answer, though perhaps a trained therapist would have some theories.
As usual, I resorted to impulse. The only calculated part of the process was a desire to mix up bands I already like and others that were new to me, and a further desire to mix up the genres so that visitors here will be at least somewhat caught off guard if they move from one choice to the next and the next.
UNDERGANG (Denmark) / CORPUS OFFAL (U.S.)
Even though I’m not qualified to diagnose my own mental aberrations, I feel entirely competent to opine that if YOU don’t like Undergang, there’s something seriously wrong with you. And something wronger still if you don’t dig their new song “Maddikehavets dans“.
It brings us gothic piano melodies and tortured screams, pulverizing blows and crashing guitar distortion, abyssal gutturals and jumping grooves, rabid yells and filthy oozing crawls, miserably wailing and freakishly squirming guitar-leads, heavily groaning and gravel-chewing bass lines; ax-like snare hacks and earthquake double-bass; and further doses of torture-victim agony. What’s not to like?
There’s also something wrong with you if you don’t like Corpus Offal, and not just because they’re from my old hometown of Austin, Texas. On their side of this new split with Undergang they deliver “Epitomic Disembowelment“. I had to look up the definition of “epitomic”, and found that it describes “something that is the perfect example, embodiment, or representation of a specific quality or class… a quintessential instance of something” — the something here being disembowelment.
A bold claim, of course, given the long line of death metal bands who’ve done their best to manifest gutting ruthlessness, including of course the bands who actually named themselves for that foul torture. But Corpus Offal make a mighty effort, bringing forth massive and mauling riffage, screeching guitars, ruthless battery, pile-driving pulverization, and a cornucopia of macabre vocal horrors.
The low end often feels like the movement of tectonic plates; the distorted guitars burst into tremolo-picked feeding frenzies; thrilling drum-fills light up the slower and more viscerally blood-congealing moments; those screaming guitars explode into electrifying, spider-fingered convulsions and they also miserably quiver; and man, the vocals really are so disgusting as to raise the hairs on the back of your neck.
At the moment it’s very difficult for me to imagine two songs that go as well together on a two-track split as these two sonic horrors. (The split was digitally released on April 16th by Extremely Rotten Productions.)
https://corpusoffal-undergang.bandcamp.com/album/split
https://undergang.bandcamp.com/album/maddikehavets-dans
https://www.facebook.com/undergangktdm/
https://www.facebook.com/p/Corpus-Offal-61567849133078/
FUNEBRARUM (U.S.)
Continuing with the lineup of bands you would be mentally impaired not to like, my next choice is a new single from New Jersey’s Funebrarum, the second song revealed so far from their first new release in a decade.
“From Rotting Burial Shrouds” lines up very well with the first two songs in today’s collection, which is to say it’s filthy, rotten death metal that oozes horror from every pore. At first, it’s a manic experience, surging forward with viciously gnashing and roiling riffage on the back of vividly bounding beats. The vocals are disgustingly cavernous, the guitar-churn is liquefying, and the drumming is exhilarating.
The song also features eerily woozy and wailing arpeggios that eventually soar in haunting fashion, before the band cut loose with another explosion of foul mayhem. They also administer a brutal beating while also letting the riffs slither like serpents, and they hauntingly elevate the music again near the end, like massed graves opened and apparitions straining toward the moon.
The song is part of Funebrarum’s long-awaited third album, Beckoning the Void of Eternal Silence, which is set for release on May 29th via Pulverised Records.
https://funebrarum-death-metal.bandcamp.com/track/from-rotting-burial-shrouds
https://www.facebook.com/FunebrarumOfficial/
BARÚS (France)
Now we’ll change course fairly dramatically, albeit with another band you ought to like if you have any sense — the French avant-garde death metal band Barús. Our Andy Synn wrote about their music repeatedly from 2015 through 2021, but there’s been a break since then, with no new Barús music surfacing until this past week.
What recently surfaced (just yesterday in fact) is a cover song, but “cover” might be the wrong word. It’s more of a tribute to the original song, which is what Barús call it, given how significantly they have rearranged it. The original song is “Nebulous,” from Meshuggah’s album Nothing.
Barús presented their reconstruction of the song through a surreal video, and the music includes aspects of the surreal as well. The riffing massively heaves and grimly writhes like a big serpent, and the lead guitar quivers like a smaller viper, all of that backed with off-kilter beats. The music also coldly bludgeons as scarring, serrated-edge vocals arrive.
The music stops and starts, moans and groans, still monstrous and as cold as ice, but then Barús make a dramatic detour, shifting into big tribal beats and brightly tinkling keys. From there dual-guitars start frantically shivering, and the music inflicts a brutish pulse.
The drum patterns continue changing without warning, and gnashing violence ensues — though the music is again interspersed with unexpected and more gentle (but haunting) digressions, as well as filaments of eerily shimmering and hallucinatory melody that contrast with the music’s hulking and heaving heaviness.
Barús describe this song as a glimpse at a new album named Affres, which they tell us will be released “sometime this year”. That’s exciting news in these quarters.
https://barus.bandcamp.com/
https://www.instagram.com/barus.deathmetal
https://www.facebook.com/barusband/
VINTREGAL (Ukraine)
You’ll make yet another turn in today’s musical path with this next selection, which consists of three songs revealed so far from the debut EP by Ukrainian black metal band Vintregal. The EP’s title is Назустріч Останньому Світанку (Towards the Last Dawn). Here’s how their label ATMF presents it:
Formed in Ukraine, Vintregal presents their debut EP “Towards the Last Dawn”, a work shaped by the spirit, resilience, and natural landscapes of their homeland. The album stands as a first statement of the project, exploring themes of courage, endurance, strong desire and power of the land and its people. Each track reflects a narrative drawn from folklore, history, and symbolic storytelling, marking the beginning of Vintregal’s journey in black metal.
The EP’s opening song, “Вовче Серце” (Wolf’s Heart), does begin with a wolf’s forlorn howl but then expresses a ringing and seemingly tormented pulse, tumultuous low-end currents, and furiously howling human vocals whose passion makes them splinter. When the pace slows, the music also becomes both more panoramic and more poignant, seeming to yearn and to grieve, to sorrowfully remember and to mourn.
The next song in the EP’s running order that’s available now, “Після Сонця..” (After the Sun..), is a more muted and haunting affair. It creates a very dark spell, bringing forth bitter winds, softly strummed acoustic guitars, gently shimmering synths, and other clean tones that are wrenching to hear.
The third song, “Сини Зими” (Sons of Winter), also begins somberly but elegantly, yet as the keys continue to ring the music vastly expands. Folk-like, flute-like tones carry the melody, but as the scalding vocals arrive the music also transforms into more angry and bleak moods.
The song creates an ancient, majestic, and even mystical aura, and the wide-screen melodies are beautiful but also deeply melancholy. The vibrant flute resiliently returns in the midst of symphonic grandeur, but so do the anguished vocals and marching beats, with a reprise of the song’s opening at the end.
Назустріч Останньому Світанку is set for release by ATMF on May 29th.
https://atmfsssdtp.bandcamp.com/album/towards-the-last-dawn
https://www.facebook.com/aeternitas.tenebrarum/
LACASTA (Italy)
We’ll stay in the vicinity of black metal with this next song and video from the Italian band laCasta, who braid their BM together with hardcore/crust-punk fury.
This song (“Melma“) is powerfully intense, and the beautifully filmed and edited smoke-shrouded video enhances that intensity by showing just how strongly the band throw themselves into their performance, really immersing themselves in what they’re doing and completely caught up in the song’s emotional force.
The music vents hammering blasts, dense churning riffage laden with grit and fueled by fire, scorching screams, and furious roars. When the beats slow, the searing and writhing guitars begin to sound wrenching, like a hybrid channel of torment and despair. There’s some vividly throbbing bass-work in the song too, which somehow manages to be detectable despite the battering and blistering impact of all the surrounding sounds.
The song is from laCasta’s new album Olibanvm, which will arrive on May 8th via Argonauta Records. You can check out the video for a previous single off the album here.
https://www.facebook.com/lacastaband
https://www.facebook.com/ArgonautaRecords
THERE WERE WIRES (U.S.)
The name There Were Wires didn’t ring any bells with me. It was only after I got totally absorbed and fired up by this next song and video that I more carefully reviewed the info we received about them.
It seems they were formed in Boston during the late ’90s, played live a lot, and made a few releases before disbanding in 2004. But they reunited for some live shows in 2023 and then recorded a new album named Vessel that will be their first album release in 20 years.
Well, when you watch the video for the song “Massive House Fire” you can see these guys have some mileage behind them. But you can also see they know how to command attention on stage, and it’s a thrill to watch their faces as the camera cuts from one performer to the next. The song is commanding as well.
It’s a heavy hard-hitter of a song, one that surges with gut-slugging grooves, pulse-pounding riffs, and absolutely broiling vocals. But the music also includes melodies of wrenching bleakness, grimly clanging chords, riffs that rake, lead guitars that cry out in pain, and agonized yells.
Vessel is set for release on June 26th via Iodine Recordings.
https://lnk.to/massivehousefire
https://therewerewires.bandcamp.com/album/vessel
https://www.instagram.com/therewerewires
https://www.facebook.com/IodineRecordings/
CLASS TRAITOR (Australia)
I guess that beginning with laCasta and continuing with There Were Wires we’ve been drifting in metallic/hardcore directions, and we’ll sort of continue that drift with this final song and video today — but only “sort of”, because Class Traitor’s music includes many other ingredients as well, including (as I hear it) sludge, post-metal, and noise rock.
This particular song, “User“, begins with an instrumental overture that’s a bit disorienting, a bit psychedelic, and not happy at all, but interesting to hear. As soon as screamed vocals rip into the listener with throat-shredding intensity and the bass starts tunneling through deep earth, the guitars remain disorienting and distressed as they sizzle and squirm in piercing tones.
The vocals sound like they could melt the paint from walls if broadcast loud enough, and the riffing might do the same. But the song also includes ragged, wailing singing, pulverizing body blows, dismal fretwork reverberations, and gasped words. All is not right, all is not well, that message is clear.
I should add that the Class Traitor album which includes “User” — The Images Aren’t Mine — was released on April 17th, just yesterday. I haven’t listened to the rest of it (this is one of the bands I mentioned at the outset that I just discovered this morning), but “User” warrants a deeper dive when time allows.
https://classtraitor.bandcamp.com/album/the-images-arent-mine
https://www.facebook.com/clsstrtr/
https://instagram.com/class.traitor