(written by Islander)
I was out with my spouse and two other couples last night. Didn’t get to bed until after midnight, didn’t wake up until the morning hours were well underway, didn’t feel very human at that point or at any other points leading up to the present.
Fortunately, I had already made my choices for this column yesterday. Unfortunately, I didn’t think I would be in the best position this morning to explain why I like them so much. But in listening to the songs again, they completely blew away the mental cobwebs.
PILORI (France)
Andy Synn reviewed Pilori’s most recent album (until now), 2022’s Quand bien même l’enfer et le déluge s’abattraient sur nous, calling it “a wonderfully nasty piece of work, in the best possible way”:
Mixing, melding, and macerating Blackened Hardcore and Crusty Death Metal into one abrasive amalgam that lands somewhere between Ancst and Autopsy, Iskra and Grave, these ten tracks definitely aren’t afraid of going for the throat….
This coming April Pilori will return with their third album, Sans Adieu (which means something like “Without Farewell”), which happens to coincide with the band’s 10th anniversary. This past week they released a video for the album’s first single, “Lèse-Majesté“, a phrase that (according to The Font of All Human Knowledge) means “an offence or defamation against the dignity of a ruling head of state (traditionally a monarch but now more often a president) or of the state itself.”
Be forewarned: The vocals will scorch your eyebrows, and the music feels like a mechanized battering ram fueled with high-octane, furious enough to loosen your teeth. Hardcore hammering enters the fray too, along with blast-beat fusillades and riffing that viciously buzzes and abysmally wails. A tremendously explosive but also stricken song.
Sans Adieu will be co-released on April 17th by Frozen Records and Terrain Vague.
https://terrainvaguerecords.bandcamp.com/album/sans-adieu
https://pilori.bandcamp.com/album/sans-adieu
https://linktr.ee/piloriband
https://www.facebook.com/pilori.band/
SAILLE (Netherlands)
At the end of this coming week Non Serviam Records will release the sixth album by this Dutch black metal band, whose music we’ve been repeatedly praising since 2012 (as you can see here). The album’s name is Forbode, and its first single and chilling video are definitely foreboding.
The song, “Deception of Decadence“, includes hammering gallops and melodies that mysteriously ring and ominously tower, as well as caustic snarls, fervent singing, sinister braying chords, viciously feverish fretwork, mandolin-like trilling, and lots more. Highly theatrical, immensely diabolical, Hell in all its grandeur.
https://www.non-serviam-records.com/products/saille-forebode-digipak
https://non-serviam-records.bandcamp.com/album/forebode
https://www.facebook.com/SAILLE.Official
DOODSWENS (Netherlands)
Staying in the Netherlands, we’ll turn next to Doodswens, a band whose name means “death wish” in Dutch, though they say it might translate better to “Driven By Death“, which is the title of the lead single for their new album. It arrived with an unnerving video.
Here you’ll get ruinous and ragged vocal ferocity and furious blasting, riffing that sounds like a vat of boiling acid, and a low end that sounds like the undulations and heart-throbs of a giant subterranean serpent. The beats also skip and jump, and the music manifests moods more cruel and dismal, but the riffs also defiantly spike upward and gloriously swirl.
Doodswens’ new album is self-titled, and set for release on April 17th by Svart Records.
https://www.svartrecords.com/en/product/doodswens-doodswens/14147
https://orcd.co/doodswens
https://www.facebook.com/DoodswensOfficial
FOGHAZER (Germany)
This next song will come at you like a curveball. For people who aren’t fans of baseball, what I mean is that it will likely cross you up. It’s definitely not straight down the middle of the black metal plate, but I hope you’ll give it a chance.
The introduction by whoever is behind Foghazer might be a bit off-putting to many black metal fans, but it might also intrigue you (as it did me): “The record began as an accident. Fragments of trip-hop, early-2000s vinyl scratching, and the Black Metal influences I grew up on colliding with the dark, operatic production of Temples of Boom and the haunted stillness of Portishead’s self-titled album. The result felt nostalgic but unfamiliar, like something remembered wrong.”
As forecast in that quote, what you’ll get from “He” is an amalgam of brittle, haunting notes; eerily wailing melodies; floor-bouncing and heart-throbbing beats; bursts of glitchy and screeching electronic madness; crystal-pure soprano singing that goes very high; and tidal movements of caustic riffage. Reading this, you’ll think it makes no sense. I, for one, have listened to it more than anything else in today’s collection. Make of that what you will.
The song is from Foghazer’s debut album He Left the Temple. Hypnotic Dirge Records will release it on March 27th.
https://hypnoticdirgerecords.bandcamp.com/track/he-2
http://www.facebook.com/hypnoticdirgerecords
PETRICHOR (U.S.)
Petrichor is a new U.S. band (not to be confused with one of the other five bands listed at M-A with that same name). It’s the solo work of Sgah’gahsowáh, who has become very well known as the person behind Blackbraid. You may wonder, as I did, why he started another project for the two songs that have recently been released on Petrichor’s debut EP. I haven’t seen any official explanation, but you’ll probably figure out the answer when you hear them.
In “Moss and Blood Have Gathered in Shadow” the reverberating vocals scream with the kind of unhinged and tortured intensity that’s a marker of raw black metal. In its slower phases, the music (which is raw in its own way but also piercing) creates a very haunting and depleted mood. In its faster phases — which are very fast indeed — the music burns and writhes, as tormented as the vocals and nearly as caustic. During interludes, the whirring fretwork sounds both mysterious and melancholy.
“Seduced By Conquering Darkness” comes across as more mythic and grand, more warlike and haughty, more heavily thrusting and steadily marching, but it also explodes in torrents of maniacal blasting and gale-force riffing, as well as launching into galloping beats and jubilant fanfares. The vocals are again so nasty and so berserk as to be spine-tingling.
https://petrichor-us.bandcamp.com/album/seduced-by-conquering-darkness
https://www.instagram.com/petrichor__us
3 T (U.S.)
To close out today’s collection I have a debut EP by the band 3 T from the Puget Sound area of Washington. Their lineup features former members of Jesus Fucking Christ, Howling Gods, Blackgoat, Wizards of Wor, and Book of Black Earth. I gave it a listen because one of those members is an old acquaintance and former neighbor, but I’m recommending it now because it’s a hell of a thing.
Final Victim (the name of the EP) includes five short and savage songs that stylictically draw on black metal, thrash, and d-beat hardcore punk. The music is feral and free-wheeling, nasty and chock-full of hooks, viscerally compulsive and quickly addictive.
The vocals spray like hot acid, so your walls will need re-painting by the time the EP finishes. The riffing whips from slashing punk chords to bursts of tremolo-driven napalm, dervish-like whirls, and skittering infiltrations of insectile fretwork, with shrill, fiery, and frenetic guitar-leads spurting into the mix too.
As for the rhythm section, the drumming repeatedly shifts gears too, ejecting blast-beat tirades but kicking into d-beats too, while dosing the music with exhilarating fills and crashing cymbals, and even bringing in some tribal grooves. The bass heavily thunders but also gets a chance to murderously growl up-front.
The EP is punk in another way too: It sounds like it was recorded on a loading dock or in a garage, i.e., it has an honest DIY sound, no frills nor any pretences. The whole thing kicks a lot of ass, so don’t sleep on it.