(written by Islander)
Consider this a head-start on the roundup I usually put together on Saturday. A hell of a lot of new songs and videos popped up this week, and even with this head-start I still won’t be able to make more than a dent in that big moving wall, but at least it will be a bigger dent this week.
I decided to focus today’s collection on the bigger names scrawled on that wall, but before finishing we’ll still turn our gaze to a few names not yet written in such large letters. I haven’t figured out what tomorrow’s column will include, but my aim will be to dig even deeper into obscurities (at least relatively speaking).
HIDEOUS DIVINITY (Italy)
Last year we devoted a hell of a lot of abundantly deserved attention to Hideous Divinity and their latest album Unextinct, including DGR‘s review, Dan Barkasi‘s fantastic interview of Enrico Schettino, and my own frothing about individual album tracks in roundups like this one. (All those articles are stacked up here.) This week brought us a reminder of what a killer album that was (and is), in the form of a new video for the mid-album marauder “Quasi-Sentient“.
Featuring backlit visions of the band throwing themselves into the performance, as well as footage from the 1920 movie “Der Golem, wie er in die Welt kam” by Paul Wegener, the video beautifully meshes with both the high-voltage electricity of the song and its viscerally frightening aspects, including the supernatural aura of its melodies. This is one of the most breathtaking and chilling songs on Unextinct, and the video does it justice.
https://hideousdivinity.lnk.to/Unextinct
https://www.facebook.com/hideousdivinity
https://centurymedia.bandcamp.com/album/unextinct-24-bit-hd-audio
CRYPTOPSY (Canada)
Cryptopsy have already left a smoking crater right in the middle of this year with the June release of their latest full-length onslaught An Insatiable Violence (if you just awoke from a coma and are only now discovering that such a thing happened, you can find Andy Synn‘s review here). It’s not as if ardent metalheads really needed any more violent wake-up calls about the album, but this week brought one anyway.
What’s next in today’s collection is a short film by director Christopher Kells that stitches together an 8-part video “mini-series” featuring a medley of excerpts from all 8 songs on the album. Here’s how he explained it for the video’s premiere at Rue Morgue:
“The videos explore the grotesque and isolating effects of digital culture, influencer obsession and the decay of self-worth in a hyper-connected world. Actress Lisa McCormack dove right into the character development and gave it her all as our influencer. The fast-paced imagery and visuals mirror the psychological descent of an online persona from idolized content creator to digital burnout and eventual madness…”
It boggles the mind to think about the challenges of trying to do what Christopher Kells set out to do. It’s even more mind-boggling to see and hear the results, and to imagine how many hours of work must have gone into the production of this blistering sub-4-minute extravaganza. Actress Lisa McCormack should take a deep bow too.
https://orcd.co/cryptopsyaninsatiableviolence
https://cryptopsyofficial.bandcamp.com/album/an-insatiable-violence
https://www.facebook.com/cryptopsyofficial/
GREEN CARNATION (Norway)
Now we’ll turn to music from an album that isn’t out yet, and in fact was just announced this week. That new album, The Shores of Melancholia, is described by Season of Mist as “the first part of A Dark Poem, a grand and gloomy album trilogy that was inspired by Arthur Rimbaud’s dreamy ode to Shakespeare’s Ophelia.” Accompanying that announcement, Season of Mist released an enthralling video for the album’s first advance track, “In Your Paradise“.
Green Carnation‘s twisting and turning musical history gives them a lot to work with, and what I’ve read so far about the new album suggests that they’ve pulled from a lot of those varying strands across the record. As Season of Mist rightly previews here, “Like the sails of a ship, ‘In Your Paradise‘ opens with majestic, billowing leads before chugging full steam ahead.” And I’ll share this from them as well, which includes comments from vocalist Kjetil Nordhus:
“It makes you want to bang your head a little”, Nordhus says with a pleased smile. His baritone booms loud and clear over the song’s heavy bass groove. But even though it positively soars amidst brightly streaking synths, the view of the world from ‘In Your Paradise‘ is a far cry from peaceful. Just as the video flashes haunting images from today’s headlines, on The Shores of Melancholia, Green Carnation are hounded by fearmongers. “The Babylon, apostasy, the judgement day is here”, belts Nordhus with masterful command over his piercing upper register. “It’s in your head”.
I don’t have much to add to that, other than to say the song is mesmerizing (enhanced by a beautiful flute performance by the beautiful Ingrid Ose), the vocals are terrific (an obvious exception to our site’s somewhat tongue-in-cheek rule about singing), and yes indeed, you’ll want to bang your head, and more than just a little.
Just a fucking great song and an outstanding video, and no wonder they’ve led with it.
A Dark Poem, Part I: The Shores of Melancholia comes out on September 5th. The band will premiere all of it live later this year at ProgPower USA.
https://orcd.co/greencarnationadarkpoem1
https://www.facebook.com/GreenCarnationNorway/
DESASTER (Germany)
It’s hard to find a band born in the late ’80s who forged ahead straight through to the present day without some kind of long hiatus or an interment followed years later by a resurrection, but Desaster is one of those rare creatures whose extensive discography reveals no long breaks. And here they are in 2025, ready with their tenth album.
The new one, Kill All Idols, is set for release by Metal Blade on August 22nd, and this week they delivered a video for the first single, “Towards Oblivion“. The song seizes attention immediately, thanks to an opening guitar solo that both vividly swirls and grimly gnaws, and the band don’t loosen their grip after that. The drums hammer; the riffing viciously buzzes and jubilantly writhes; the vocals rabidly come for our throats with all fangs bared.
The music also sweeps like stormy seas, becomes desolate and dark, cuts the pace in order to cast a dismal and devilish spell, ignites a bonfire through an exhilarating guitar solo, and gives us one last pulse-pounding charge. All these many years later, Desaster are still firing on all cylinders.
https://www.metalblade.com/desaster/
https://www.total-desaster.com
https://www.facebook.com/666Desaster666
https://www.instagram.com/Desaster_official
BRÉVINE (Switzerland)
“Tempête” is the second single from the Swiss post-metal band Brévine‘s debut album Lhotse. To me it sounds like two songs presented back-to-back and then eventually folded together in breathtaking fashion.
The opening song-within-a-song is as light and beautiful as ice crystals or flower petals swirling in a gentle breeze. The music glistens, but its early mood is haunting as well as gently wondrous.
Brightness begins to flare through vibrantly strummed chords and energized beats, leading into the second song-within-a song, which is much heavier, much darker, and more surging in its power. That’s where scalding vocals come in, ratcheting the music’s intensity even further, helping propel it to a sweeping zenith, with shining keys soaring overhead, and transfixing sung vocals sending hearts into throats.
From there, the song’s tremendous emotional power doesn’t relent, but the band do create a union of sorts between the song’s two phases. In the final minute, it reveals splendor and wonder again even as the music is also charging like an avalanche.
These Hands Melt, the label that will release Lhotse, describes Brévine‘s music as “immersive and mesmerizing, sometimes hard and dense like stone, sometimes airy and fluid like water.” But the beautiful video for this song uses blowing snowfields and stunning mountain vistas to create a different but equally appropriate metaphor. And here’s the band’s own interpretation of the song (you’ve seen mine):
“The calm before the storm” is what we usually say. But sometimes the real storm hits after the first one has passed. It never truly leaves nor gives us peace. It pulls back just enough to make us feel safe, before turning the world upside down with a violent despair.
“Tempête” captures that false calm, the one quiet moment that feels wrong, the stillness that warns the world of what’s coming. We all feel the ambiguity of a coming storm, between fear and fascination or the tense relationships that crack beneath the surface, and what happens when everything finally explodes. And then… the light. A tiny, weak sparkle of it but still it’s light!
In the manner of those deep-sea fishes that glow in the dark, are we being lured? Or is it really the sign of something better ahead? Face the tempest, and you’ll figure it out.
The video was made by Anaïs Chareyre-Méjan, who also created the album cover. I’ll also include the video directed by François Verreyt for the album’s immense first single, “Cîme“.
Lhotse will be released on September 12th by These Hands Melt.
https://brevine.bandcamp.com/album/lhotse-2
https://www.facebook.com/brevine.cold
THEURGION (U.S.)
And now to close out this Friday roundup — but do come back tomorrow for a further excursion into new sights and sounds.
On August 8th Profound Lore will release All Under Heaven, the debut album from a U.S.-based trio whose members have been involved in bands such as Chaos Moon, Krieg, Häxanu, Kveldstimer, and Collier d’Ombre. Their music is described as “towering and melancholic death/traditional doom metal.” A Bandcamp alert earlier this week drew attention to the first advance song from the album, “The Storm“.
Well, you wouldn’t use that name for a song unless you planned to storm, would you? And Theurgion do storm, right from the start, drenching the listener in ravishing roiling waves of brilliant-toned riffing, backed by heaving low-end heaviness and punchy beats.
It’s an eye-popping way to begin, and strong, high-flown singing pops them wider. The singing is the most obvious trad-doom feature of the song. The song also features a gentle phase of mesmerizing mystery in which the vocals heroically sore, but also a very heavy stalking march in which jagged voracious roars lead the way.
The song is one that brings tapestries to mind, leading the listener through a changing weave that portrays a mythic saga. It creates visions of daunting menace and despair, but also continues to cast the shine of vast celestial wonders. The vocals in both their aspects are tremendous throughout, perhaps especially when they join together in the song’s stunning finale, and the track’s nuanced rhythmic drive-train is as strong as everything else.
https://linktr.ee/theurgion
https://profoundlorerecords.bandcamp.com/album/all-under-heaven