(written by Islander)
In deciding what to feature in these Saturday columns I sometimes spend a lot of time making my way through a lot of songs. Sometimes many of them are deflating, and the hunt goes on. Sometimes a lot of them are great, and the choices become difficult. But this week I happened upon seven songs in a row and knew right away that six of those would be here today. (I left one of them aside, so the usual collage of cover images would be symmetrical.)
As it also happened, the following songs include an unusual amount of singing — not singing we have to just put up with because other aspects of the songs make them commanding, but because the singing is itself a big part of the draw. And as it happened, all but one of the songs debuted with good videos.
None of these bands is even close to the Metallica strata of stardom, but I think it’s fair to say that most of them are well-known among metal lovers, or at least the kind of metal lovers who show up at our doorstep. Most of these bands have had careers of significant length and discographies that are well-respected. For these columns, I usually try to work in music by bands from deeper under the ground, using bigger names as lures for visitors who might not know of the more obscure names. But I didn’t have room to do as much of that today as I typically do. My goal is to make amends tomorrow.
HANGING GARDEN (Finland)
This past week brought the news that Hanging Garden will be releasing their ninth album in March. The PR stuff teased it as reflecting “a different approach to their signature somber melancholy: the new full-length presents perhaps a darker, more sinister rendition of the oftentimes dreamlike tones of the past releases.”
Along with the album announcement we got a beautifully filmed video for the record’s first single, “To Outlive the Nine Ravens” — a great thing to watch because we get to see all the performers contributing to the creation of a very dramatic song.
It’s dramatic in different ways, from the song’s explosive and searing opening assault to the magnificently solemn and soaring vocal harmony that elevates the song even higher, from the scorching howls and wrenching screams of vocalists Riikka and Toni Hatakka, to the softer and more haunting phases that follow.
It’s the kind of song that alternately lifts the heart and sinks it, an expression of fiery passion and stricken sorrow. And man, those clean-sung vocal harmonies are stunning, as are the roars and screams.
The name of the new album is Isle of Bliss. It will be out March 20th on Agonia Records.
https://agoniarecords.com/en/hanging_garden
https://agoniarecords.bandcamp.com/album/isle-of-bliss
http://hanging-garden.org/
https://www.facebook.com/hanginggardenofficial
WINTERFYLLETH (UK)
Winterfylleth also has a ninth album set for release in March, on their new label Napalm Records. Titled The Unyielding Season, it’s described as “a social commentary”, “a reflection on – and a rebellion against – the turmoils and fears that are tearing the lives of many individuals apart.” They say it is “a cry against the unsustainable & constant weight of malevolence and pressure being pushed into the world by agents of an un-resting and unyielding force for evil.”
In what I’ve read, they don’t get any more specific about the nature of the threat(s) than that, and I haven’t seen the lyrics, which might shed more light on the nature of the evils they perceive.
The first song and video for the album, “Heroes of a Hundred Fields“, is described as one in which the band “weave an epic story into a raging battle hymn, describing brave minds joining forces against a common oppressor to fight for their freedom.”
As promised, the song is indeed a fiery war-charge, driven by rapidly hammering drums, searing riffage, and scorching screams. Yet the melodic component of the riffing, augmented by soaring symphonic embellishments, sounds stricken and anguished as much as it sounds fierce, channeling moods of grim desperation and vast sorrow along with the raging fury of the vocals.
But make no mistake, the song (like the video) really is fierce, especially when the percussion rumbles and booms and the riffing ignites in bursts of feverishly jolting violence
The Unyielding Season is set for release by Napalm on March 27th.
https://napalmrecords.us/collections/winterfylleth
https://winterfylleth.bandcamp.com/album/the-unyielding-season
https://www.facebook.com/Winterfylleth
CRIPPLED BLACK PHOENIX (UK)
The last two bands are releasing their ninth albums in a couple of months, but Crippled Black Phoenix will be releasing their lucky 13th! I’m well aware that their music and lyrical themes are more “metal adjacent” than metal, and much less sonically crippling than most of what we pay attention to around here. But for roughly the last decade I’ve always checked out their new releases, because in varying ways they’ve always left me fascinated and hooked — just like this next song and video did. But first, here’s an excerpt from how the PR materials describe their new album:
Severe, restrained, and emotionally exposed, the record presents itself not as a dramatic statement but as a slow accumulation of unease. Where earlier works often grappled with collective trauma or historical violence, Sceaduhelm listens to what lingers afterward: fatigue, memory, complicity, and the quiet weight of survival.
Now, on to the song. The star of “Ravenettes” is singer Belinda Kordic, whose clear, range-spanning voice is simultaneously sinister and haunting, seductive and scary. But the song’s other ingredients are hellaciously good too, from the enormous rocking grooves to the vibrantly pulsing, squirming, and viciously sizzling guitars.
It will make your muscles bounce, but maybe also make you worry that some red-eyed fiends are getting close to your neck. And when it’s not bouncing your bones, it gets shadowy and sorrowful too, and in all those ways and more it’s tremendously infectious.
As for the video, well it’s a hell of a thing to watch, a wicked delight, and that’s all I’ll say about it.
Sceaduhelm will be released by Season of Mist on April 17th.
https://orcd.co/cbpsceaduhelm
https://crippledblackphoenixsom.bandcamp.com/album/sceaduhelm
https://riseupandfight.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/CBP444/
NERVOSA (Brazil)
The shift from Crippled Black Phoenix to Nervosa is likely to induce mental whiplash. In this next song and video, which feature the title song to Nervosa’s new album Slave Machine, these ladies bring the fire.
Founding guitarist Prika Amaral resumes the role she established in their last album as the band’s vocalist, while the non-stop revolving door of the rest of the lineup continues to revolve. Her furious snarls are authentically savage, and a fitting accompaniment for turbocharged riffing that carries a blazing pulse and lots of cutting edges.
Furious singing and screaming, accompanied by vivaciously darting notes, help send the song gloriously higher in the choruses, and the riffing vibrantly swirls as well as jolts. There is, of course, a fret-melter of a solo in the mix too, just in case your adrenaline wasn’t already gushing fast enough.
In other words, this is bloody red meat for hungry thrashers. Prepare to feast! (Slave Machine will be released on April 3rd by Napalm Records.)
https://napalmrecords.us/collections/nervosa
https://nervosa-brazil.bandcamp.com/album/slave-machine
https://www.facebook.com/nervosa
CHAINED TO THE BOTTOM OF THE OCEAN (U.S.)
This next band doesn’t have as much notoriety or as many years behind them as the first four choices today, but we (among others) have paid close attention to them. And by “we”, I mean our Andy Synn, who crafted succinct reviews of both their 2023 second album Obssession Destruction (here) and their 2024 third one Sisyphean Cruelty (here).
This year Chained To the Bottom of the Ocean are following up those two slaughtering assaults with a new EP named Let Us Not Speak Of Them But Look And Pass On, and the past week delivered one of the new songs, a nightmarish punisher named “An Adornment of Light“.
As my friend Andy has previously observed, this band’s music can be “unforgivingly ugly” — grimy, gruesome, and grinding — but also ominous, oppressive, and soul-crushing. Both aspects of the band’s sound are on display in this new one.
At the outset it’s stupefyingly heavy and abrasive — slowly and ruthlessly pounding the listener with humongous percussive blows and the caustic reverberation of radioactive riffing, while lacerating minds with completely unhinged screams and rabid howls.
But the band also start punching with bare-knuckled hardcore belligerence and inflict doses of poisonously squirming and frighteningly exuberant fretwork. They drag listeners through sludge-saturated troughs of congealing misery, suddenly explode in a burst of thundering and scavaging violence, and unfurl a wailing, high-flying guitar melody that’s utterly abysmal.
Before the end it sounds like some monstrosity is gurgling bones it hasn’t yet digested, while other monstrosities squeal and abrade nerves with their shivering mania.
Of all the songs in today’s collection, this one is the diametric opposite of a “crowd pleaser”, but its manifold abuses are undeniably gripping nonetheless.
The new EP will be released on February 20th through Redscroll Records.
https://chainedtothebottomoftheocean.bandcamp.com/album/let-us-not-speak-of-them-but-look-and-pass-on
https://www.facebook.com/ChainedtotheBottomoftheOcean
IGORRR (France)
Time to inflict another episode of whiplash on our visitors, with a closing song and video from the inimitable Igorrr.
We have already spilled a great volume of words, uttered by many of our writers, about the marvel’s of Igorrr’s 2025 album Amen. And maybe we would have been content with that and finally closed the book on Amen but for the release of this video for “Limbo“, which by my lights is one of the most breathtaking songs on the album.
The beautifully filmed video is wonderful because it allows us to see most of the people who made the song possible, and to see them during their actual recording of the track. Those people include (and this isn’t an exhaustive list) classical guitarist Nils Cheville, drummer Rémi Serafino, electric guitarist Martyn Clément, pianist Guilhem Fabre, bassist Mike Leon, a magnificent choir performing in Abbaye Saint-Pons in Nice, the stunning operatic singer Marthe Alexandre, and the screamer/growler JB Le Bail. Mastermind Gautier Serre also performs on a taiko drum and a toy piano. 🙂
Of “Limbo,” Gautier has said, “It’s an endless battle between good and evil. Beauty navigates through evil, always keeping its head above the surface, even in the heaviest storm.”
It’s a great experience to see and hear this, including the part near the end when JB Le Bail helps inject a storming metal crescendo into the magnificence.
https://www.metalblade.com/igorrr/
https://igorrr.bandcamp.com/album/amen
https://www.facebook.com/IgorrrBarrroque