(written by Islander)
I always confront two challenges in making this list — which songs to include overall, and which ones to group together in each segment. In trying to solve the second conundrum I sometimes conceive of connections that make the grouping seem logical, though at times my “logic” must certainly seem perplexing to others.
Tomorrow will be a decent example of an intentional combination, for reasons I’ll explain then. Today really isn’t that, but more just a grabbing of three songs I thought belonged on the list as they jumped out at me from the early part of my alphabetical list of candidates when I scanned through it for the umpteenth time since December.
ABDUCTION
Abduction released their latest album Existentialismus way the hell back in February of last year. Given all the fresh hells the last 11+ months have opened for all of us, it seems like an eon ago, but the album still seems remarkably fresh itself, even now.
Thematically, it was described by Abduction’s masked mainman A|V as a reaction to the bleakness of the current age — “the juxtaposition of this horrible post-truth era with its contradictions and the simple, metaphorical truths that began in ancient religions of the crumbling past. Somewhere between a biblical gospel and a Nietzschean nightmare.” It reflects “a particular terror in seeing all that our grandfathers built, physically and morally, being torn apart and reduced to a commodity and wondering what kind of world my son will inherit.”
Those words could have been written today and still struck home. So could these words, with which A|V described the song from Existentialismus I’ve picked for this list:
“‘Razors of Occam‘ is a celebration of the back breaking labour that our grandfathers and grandmothers endured over the past century to build the houses and systems that maintain our (relative) safety and comfort here in the west. There’s more honour in the last gasping breath, spilled forth from a dying old man’s chest, than in all the seas of all the tears the younger can conjure. For with one wish, they’d give it all away.”
The moods of “Razors of Occam” are diverse, but none of them cheerful. The music grieves, with singing voices raised in spine-tingling tones, and it rages in torment, with drums furiously blasting and chopping, the riffage feverishly writhing, and the words expelled in gritty, vicious snarls. The music also jolts and blares, slashes and sweeps like a brush fire, and brutally thunders. The band keep the intensity in the red zone until near the end, when grief descends again. The video is also remarkable, and another case when the visuals facilitated my choice of song.
https://abduction.lnk.to/Existentialismus
https://www.facebook.com/abduction616
BLACK RABBIT
This next choice was the result of a perhaps peculiar fall down a rabbit hole (yeah, of course I’m going to do that with this one). I’ve been a fan of Black Rabbit since the worst of the pandemic years, but DGR has equaled my addiction to their music. Unlike me, he has written complete reviews of their releases instead of stuttering exclamations about individual songs.
Stupidly, I didn’t make time for the first of their two 2025 releases, Chronolysis. Even DGR fell down on the job, waiting until mid-December to write about that April EP. It’s a killer of a release, and DGR’s review is a killer too. I especially this one paragraph, because it’s so on-point:
Black Rabbit are terrifyingly good at a few things, and one of those in particular is the sort of hammer-drop riff wherein it feels like part of the song is written for the sole purpose of making your neck snap. It’s that sudden upturn in accelleration and aggression at about the same time, as if the song didn’t want to wait for a pivotal moment to organically build to something heavy and instead just launches into pit-broiler after pit-broiler.
Now comes the peculiar fall down the rabbit hole. In his review of Chronolysis, DGR made note of the fact that Black Rabbit had released an even more recent EP named Warren Of Necrosis. He alleged that he intended to tackle that one, and maybe he will, but he hasn’t yet (FYI, life has thrown a fuckton of boulers at him in just this first month of the year). But I tackled it, or rather it tackled me, like some kind of rugby scrum from a fucked-up future. And lo and behold, the Black Rabbit song I’m sticking on this list is from that EP instead of the first one.
But let’s be brutally honest (the only kind of honest we know how to be around here), it would have been equally easy to pick one from Chronolysis, or any of the others on Warren Of Necrosis. That’s the kind of band Black Rabbit are — they just don’t know how to write a song that doesn’t get stuck in your craw and your reptile brain.
A lilting acoustic-guitar melody with an ancient aspect greets your ears in “Initium Finis“. It’s a seductive overture, but one that’s soon periodically interrupted by enormous jolting detonations of sound and then blown to smithereens by a racing charge of belligerent vocals, furiously hammering drums, and harsh-toned riffing that gnashes, blares, and skitters.
The drums also shift into punkish beats and the guitars seem to miserably moan, but Black Rabbit also continue delivering vigorous, head-hooking jolts and cut-throat vocals. They also bring forward slowly slithering and occult-sounding guitar solos, a frantically wailing and soaring melody, and a closing solo that ecstatically spirals above hard-slugging grooves.
https://blackrabbitnl.bandcamp.com/album/warren-of-necrosis-2
https://www.facebook.com/OfficialBlackRabbit
ANZV
The next song added today is from ANZV‘s second album KUR, which was released late last spring through Edged Circle Productions. The album’s name draws inspiration from ancient Sumerian mythology: “Kur delves into the concept of the underworld — a dark, cavernous realm beneath the earth.” This Portuguese band’s own name is taken from the Mesopotamian monster figure Anzû. “Described as a divine storm bird who could breathe fire and water or in some descriptions as a lion-headed eagle. Either also as the personification of the southern wind and the thunder clouds.”
My friend Andy reviewed KUR last June and described it as “[p]ossessing a sound which sits somewhere between the hypnotic rhythms of Mgła and the hooky riffs of Necrophobic“. It’s a superb album, one with no weak links in the track list. I picked the song “Shamash” for this list.
It immediately creates an aura of daunting esoteric grandeur, dark and expansive as it looms but also seductively ringing like sorcerous chimes. The deep, jagged-edged snarls and howls are also daunting and menacing, while the flowing seas of sound in the music’s upper reaches portray splendor.
The piercing, chime-like quality of the music persists, but grows more disturbed, more stricken in its sensations. But the guitars also ring in other ways above compulsive rocking grooves, seductive again but also thriving, even jubilant as they elevate into higher octaves.
The video is also a fantastic accompaniment for this worshipful testament to an ancient god that was, as the lyrics tell us, a reaper of souls as well as a bringer of light.
https://anzv.lnk.to/kur
https://edgedcircleproductions.bandcamp.com/album/kur
https://www.facebook.com/ANZV.OFFICIAL