(written by Islander)
Today we turn our attention to the Vienna-based black metal band Ill Tidings and a song we’re premiering from their new album Seeds of Rebirth, which will be released by the esteemed Vendetta Records on June 26th. They have provided this précis of the album as a whole:
The album balances aggression and atmosphere across seven tracks, shifting between cold melodic passages, dense riffing and moments that feel almost ritualistic in tone. While earlier releases hinted toward collapse and finality, Seeds of True Rebirth approaches those ideas head-on, presenting what the band describe as “the apocalypse” itself.
As you can see above, the album’s eye-catching cover art sets the stage in frightening (and intriguing) fashion. The song you’re about to hear is also both frightening and uncomfortably intriguing, and even as a single song, its scope is indeed world-ending.
The name of the song is “Worship the Temple of Flesh“. It creates nerve-jangling tension immediately, through the piercing throb of dissonant notes that distressingly ring above distant rumbling turbulence.
Ill Tidings break the tension by bringing the turbulence to the forefront, discharging furiously blasting drums, thunderous bass tones, scalding screams, and two-tone riffing (both grim and delirious) that viciously writhes and maniacally sears.
They enhance the song’s growing fear factor by slowing the rhythms into a lurching (and head-moving) thrust, ejecting imperious, malignant snarls, and giving the shrill lead-guitar more room to unnervingly quiver and swirl. Slowing the pace even more, they create a dangerously ominous and desolate atmosphere, one that doesn’t sound earthly.
When the song explodes again, it also expands — the frantic, layered guitars spread swaths of incendiary spectacle that spawn visions of skies on fire. Yet, as attention-grabbing (and exhilarating) as that is, the bass remains a noticeable presence — and seems to muse as well as feverishly quake — while the drums continue shifting cadences and patterns. The vocals continue changing as well, roaring and screaming, raging and venting torment, eventually doubled for extra spine-shivering intensity.
Just this one song fulfills the promise quoted above. It’s a relentlessly dynamic experience — breathtaking in the scope and fiery intensity of its violence, but also cold, oppressive, and hopeless — and not the kind of thing you’re likely to forget anytime soon.
Vendetta Records will release Seeds of True Rebirth on digital, vinyl LP, and CD formats. They recommend it for fans of: Eis, Sinmara, Misþyrming, and Abigor.
For more info about the album and how to get it as the release date approaches, check the locations linked below.
PRE-ORDER:
https://vendettarecords.bigcartel.com/
https://vendetta-records.bandcamp.com/album/seeds-of-true-rebirth
ILL TIDINGS:
https://www.facebook.com/IllTidingsBand/
https://www.instagram.com/illtidingsband/
https://illtidings.bandcamp.com/