(written by Islander)
My short vacation which spanned last weekend prevented me from writing both this Saturday column and the usual one on Sunday. So for today I had two weeks’ worth of possibilities to choose among, along with many more on my list from previous weeks. Deciding what to recommend is always difficult, but today’s decisions were monumentlly difficult. That will be true for tomorrow’s column as well.
I think I’m best advised to cut this introduction short and get right into the music.
BLACK ROYAL (Finland)
When you get to the end of today’s column you’ll find two bands no one here has ever written about before. On the other hand, we’re starting with a band whose music we’ve written about on 15 previous occasions over the last eight years, including four appearances on our annual lists of the year’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs (here’s the proof). There’s a decent chance this next song will make a fifth list after 2026 breathes its last gasp.
This song has an interesting title: “Drown the Seaweed“. A press release explains its meaning: “Drawing inspiration from the ancient mystery and power of water, the song explores the world beneath the surface. A realm long associated with fear, reverence and unseen forces. Calm seas and violent storms can prove fatal, serving as a reminder that nature demands respect and that those who underestimate its power may face a cruel fate.”
The same press release describes the music as “Atmospheric, cinematic and steeped in myth,” and that’s all true, but of course this is Black Royal, and so the song is also plenty heavy and plenty head-moving too.
The song’s mythic atmosphere is unsettling. It derives from shrill quivering tones and enormous beats that boom and rumble, joined by vicious, jagged-edged screams that make the experience even more dangerous.
The music eerily rings and swirls, shimmers and flows with quasi-symphonic power, but Black Royal also bring forward humongous bass throbs and rocking beats with a throb of their own. The song also includes a wonderful guitar solo that’s kind of trippy but also adds to the music’s feeling of menace.
The song was presented with a striking video (also unsettling) created by Markus Vähäaho of RAW•ART Creations that features actress Julia Koskimies. If you’re bothered by the sight of fish eyes, beautiful nude women, and/or the slitting of wrists, you might want to avoid it.
“Drown the Seaweed” is from a new Black Royal album named Abyssian, which will be released by M-Theory Audio on October 30th.
https://blackroyal.bandcamp.com/album/abyssian
https://www.facebook.com/blackroyalmusic
https://www.instagram.com/blackroyal_finland
MOTHER OF GRAVES (U.S.)
Over the course of their first two albums, Where the Shadows Adorn (2022) and The Periapt of Absence (2024), Indianapolis-based Mother of Graves garnered a lot of critical acclaim and amassed a very devoted fan following. In reviewing the second of those albums, our friend Gonzo described it as “a mournful yet triumphant cry to the doom gods of old and new”, which is a nice turn of phrase and an accurate one too.
And now we have another Mother of Graves album on the calendar, this one titled The Light that Keeps Us, and we also have its first single, “Through the Pale Shade“.
The song’s overture, a slow and haunting piano instrumental, does create visions of a pale shade, an evanescing apparition that seems lost in grief. Gradually, Mother of Graves enhance the melody with wailing guitars, but then evolve the melody through a guitar harmony that sounds even more stricken.
They also give the music greater weight and begin cracking necks. Savage growls appear, sounding both furious and wrenching, and the music eerily shivers and moans but also soars and shimmers as the pace transforms into a grim march. Dour and gritty spoken words replace the ravishing growls, leading toward a denouement of deep grief and blows of sledgehammer strength.
The Light that Keeps Us is slated for release on October 16th via Profound Lore Records.
https://linktr.ee/thelightthatkeepsus
https://motherofgraves.bandcamp.com/album/the-light-that-keeps-us
https://www.facebook.com/motherofgravesband
ANAGNORISIS (U.S.)
The Louisville-based black metal band Anagnorisis are returning with a new album after a decade-long hiatus. It reunites much of the band’s core lineup, though the new music originated as the solo work of frontman Zachary Kerr under the moniker Caregriever, a project “conceived as an outlet for processing the emotional and physical exhaustion of caring full-time for his now-late father-in-law” (to quote from a press release). The same press release included this comment from Kerr about the album’s first single:
“Nothing Left To Give” is about discovering that there are no perfect goodbyes. I spent years wishing I’d had more time with my father, only to later be given years of saying goodbye to my father-in-law as his illness slowly took him away. One loss came too quickly, the other unfolded over years, but both left the same questions behind. This song exists somewhere between those two experiences.
The lyrics, which you can find at Bandcamp are both wrenching and enraged, and Kerr screams them with shattering intensity. The music is shattering too — a torrent of furiously hammering drums and immersive, searing riffage. The music itself seems to scream and writhe as well as burn, and Anagnorisis also introduce enormous low-frequency pulsations, booming drum progressions, and beats that chop like an ax.
The music’s intensity is unrelenting, as are the vocals, and if anything they become even more upsetting to hear, even more desperate, dismal, and enraged, though the distressing nature of the sweeping harmonies is relieved a bit by the prominence and dynamism of the drumming, which shifts continually from pattern to pattern.
Only in the final seconds does the music dramatically change before the track ends — a very abrupt ending which suggests this song’s closing melody will flow into the next one on the album.
Caregriever will be released on October 23rd by Vendetta Records (EU – LP/CD), Bölverk Collective (US – CD), Negative Reflections (US – LP), and So Below Productions (US – CS).
https://vendetta-records.bandcamp.com/album/caregriever
https://anagnorisis.bandcamp.com/album/caregriever
https://www.facebook.com/anagnorisismetal/
OFFERNAT (Denmark)
I probably would have included this next song, regardless of its quality, just so I could spend time staring at Adam Burke’s magnificent cover art for the album that includes it. But I also had a good idea based on past experience with Offernat that the song would be a worthy one, and so it is.
It’s also a long one. “Tears Dissolved In Light” tops 12 minutes, but I doubt you’ll be counting the minutes as you listen. It moves from phase to phase, from a wailing, grief-stricken opening instrumental to a tremendous surge of feverish, head-hooking riffage and furiously skull-smacking beats. The music creates a high-energy pulse as it viciously swarms around a hard-slugging bass and caustic screams.
The music continues to move, bringing in a slower riff that sounds simultaneously dismal and sinister, as well as strangely shrieking guitar-leads, renewed outbursts of frenzied fretwork derangement, and a slowly slithering guitar solo. The band also bring forward another frantically pulsing riff, immense tides of grievous melody, bursts of blasting percussion, rapidly rippling solo work, and vocals that sound like a man ripping himself apart with his bare hands.
But the band also suddenly quell the nearly unhinged nature of the music in favor of gleaming, gently strummed chords and seductively quivering keys; together they sound like music from a very long time ago, and Offernat carry that mysterious and melancholy melody forward in soulful and striking fashion with dual guitars as the rhythm section return.
And there’s one final change, as the notes begin to vibrantly dart and squirm above a steady beat, leading to one last guitar solo that seems to plead and wail.
“Tears Dissolved In Light” is the opening song on Offernat’s new album The Ecstasy of Death, which will be released on September 11th hrough Night of Sacrifice Records.
https://offernat.bandcamp.com/album/the-ecstasy-of-death
https://orcd.co/tearsdissolvedinlight
https://www.facebook.com/Offernat/
STATIC ABYSS (U.S.)
I was surprised, bordering on dumbfounded, when I discovered that no one here had ever written about the music of Oakland-based Static Abyss, overlooking both two previous albums and a split with Autopsy, Cancer, and Morta Skuld. Our oversight is all the more remarkable given that the Static Abyss lineup consists of two luminaries — Greg Wilkinson and Chris Reifert — who were joined by Necrot’s Chad Gailey as drummer on their forthcoming third album, The Dying Hunt. Well, I guess better late than never.
The next song I picked for today is the recently released title song from that new album. It packs a lot of different experiences into slightly more than four minutes. I prefer my own words to those included in PR materials, but I’ll share some of those, because they’re pretty on-point:
“The Dying Hunt” plummets the listener again into the festering, psychedelic swamps of lunacy, with the spiralling melodies texturing the relentless savage riffs for an effective nightmare-inducing trip through the sonic abyss.
Continuously and relentlessly flitting between brutal passages and hypnotic otherworldly craziness, “The Dying Hunt” reflects the ailing world & the unravelling of the psyche of its inhabitants in this darkly dystopian landscape, for a masterful descent into sick Death Metal combined with Crust and Doom elements.
I won’t add much to that, other than to say the vocals are alternately blistering and monstrous; the beats are sometimes toe-tappers and leg-movers; and the music is sometimes an oppressive slog and at other times it discharges episodes of blaring and spinning madness. For good measure it also includes a highly headbangable chugfest.
The Dying Hunt is set for release on August 28th by Peaceville.
https://peaceville.bandcamp.com/album/the-dying-hunt
https://www.facebook.com/staticabyss/
LACONIST (Brazil)
As in the case of Static Abyss, I can’t find any evidence that we’ve previously written about Laconist, despite the band’s previous release of two albums and a number of shorter releases. On the other hand, like Anagnorisis, they’re returning with a new EP after a decade-long hiatus, so that may help explain the oversight.
On the new EP, Where Being Ends, I begin, founder A. Neil is the sole remaining original member, joined here by vocalist Zé Misanthrope, with drums performed by Felipe Veiga.
The first of the EP’s three songs, “Acerbus“, goes wild very quickly, driven by furiously hammering drums and a shattering scream, but the riffing flows slowly, steeping the listener in misery. And then the riffing starts contorting, dense and discordant in its impact — still miserable, but on the borderline of painful derangement.
The vocals also descend into cavernous growls, and the guitars whine and vibrate, soar and shiver, giving voice to a doomed melody. Near the end, the music broils the listener, with what sounds like frightful gasps pulsating like a siren.
“Vermiforming” is just as unsettling. It’s more immediately crazed than “Acerbus“, with dual vocalists cacophonously dueling (the credits for the EP includes guest vocals by Kyle Ball) and the riffing (and keys?) undergoing a violent seizure.
Yet near the midpoint, the music becomes monumental in its scale, and a lead guitar traces a beautifully tragic melody — an attention-seizing break before another volcanic eruption. The song’s closing moments create another dramatic shift, almost like a drift through the void into far cosmic reaches.
The final song “Nullfruition” seems to cast sanity out the door right away. Unlike “Vermiforming“, its opening isn’t a spasm of violence, but the riffing is dissonant and demented; it squeals and slowly convulses. And then, although the squealing fretwork-tortures briefly continue, the violence arrives again — clanging chords, furiously rumbling percussion, horrid gutturals, unhinged screams, and viciously boiling riffage that engulfs listeners like a pyroclastic flow.
But by now, based on the first two songs, you may be expecting some surprises — and you’ll get them. Again near the mid-point, you’ll encounter a brilliantly swirling guitar solo backed by militarized beats; and later still, the music hacks and screeches; the drums create an exhilarating rumble; and the closing moments sound like massed air-raid sirens, or a gale of cinders.
(I’m grateful to Rennie from starkweather for initially pointing me to this EP.)
https://laconist333.bandcamp.com/album/where-being-ends-i-begin
https://laconist.com/