(written by Islander)
I made life difficult for myself this week. Well, don’t we all? I did it by carefully creating an enormous list of new music that I’d spotted in various ways but failing to listen to more than a small fraction of it until this morning — and now time is running out for me to finish this column.
That list turned out to include a lot of surprises — surprise releases from bands I knew and fantastic discoveries from bands I knew nothing about. I’ve included surprises of both kinds in what you’ll find below. But given the time predicament I created for myself, I’ve been forced to resort to a “cheat” to get it finished: Specifically, the last three selections today are complete records (two albums and an EP) that I think are excellent (and surprising), but all I’m going to do is focus mainly on just one song from each of them and hope that will be enough to pull you in.
GOLGOTHAN REMAINS (Australia)
It was a surprise, at least to me, that Golgothan Remains would reappear with a new album this year. And so my eyes popped wide open when I received a Bandcamp alert when Dark Descent Records announced it yesterday. Gratifyingly, the label accompanied that announcement with a stream of the album’s first advance song, “An Emanation of Exorcism“.
This one grabs attention quickly with an eerily writhing and supernaturally ringing riff that’s intersected by jolting beats and viciously scissoring fretwork. The drums soon cut loose along with gruff barks and rabid screams. And although that seductive opening riff continues rearing its serpentine head, the song as a whole becomes increasingly rabid as the guitars feverishly contort and the drums blast away.
When the drums settle down, the guitars eject blasts of piercing abrasiveness above heavily groaning bass tones, setting an occult stage for a final ecstatic burst of fleet-fingered and fleet-limbed mayhem. (The guitar tones are terrific from beginning to end, and a big part of the song’s appeal.)
The name of the new album is Born From Darkness Absolute. It was by mixed and mastered by Greg Chandler at Priory Studios, and it features cover art by Misantropic Art. Dark Descent plans to release it on November 20th.
https://darkdescentrecords.bandcamp.com/album/born-from-darkness-absolute
https://www.facebook.com/GolgothanRemains/
LENG TCH’E (Belgium)
Another surprise: Yesterday Season of Mist digitally released a new two-song EP from the Belgian “razorgrind” band Leng Tch’e — their first new music in nearly a decade. It would have been less surprising if I had noticed that one of the two songs surfaced in late September, but so it goes.
The EP’s title song, “Hammered Into Collapse“, includes surging riffage that vicious snarls and brazenly brays, accompanied by belligerent growls and variant forms of percussive belligerence. It then switches into a hard-slugging hardcore strut fronted by crazed screams, and then a convulsion of brutish throbs, and then a grim and grisly breakdown that bleakly moans.
The second song, “Voided“, immediately attacks with a furiously swarming riff, full-throttle drumwork, and another dose of mad-dog vocal ferocity. The band punctuate the attack with quick stops and starts and seem hell-bent on knocking out all the listener’s teeth.
As in the first song, they switch tempos and riffs repeatedly, but this one includes a surprising twist, one in which the music seems to slowly and strangely slither, accented by shrill bird-like whistling tones and off-kilter beats, though that’s followed by a final surge of thunderous, slashing, and howling extremity.
A blast from the past… but it’s a short sharp shock that doesn’t sound dated at all.
https://orcd.co/lengtchehic
https://lengtche.net/
https://www.facebook.com/Lengtche/
https://www.instagram.com/lengtche.official/
MENTOR (Poland)
Nearly five years have drifted by since the Polish band Mentor released their last album, Wolves, Wraiths and Witches, and so it was yet another surprise when I noticed that they’d released two new singles last week from a forthcoming album. The first one is up on YouTube, and the second is included as a bonus on streaming platforms.
“On Every Horn a Crown” is an excellent reminder of just how much hell-raising fun Mentor can get up to. It’s a black metalpunk marauder fronted by wild, devil-driven vocals and laced with orgiastically vibrating riffage, gloriously darting arpeggios, and bits of black-hearted low-end darkness.
You can see the breakdown coming from a mile away, but it’s still fantastic when it arrives, especially because all the neck-bending chugs and neck-breaking beats are threaded with a strangely squirming and warbling guitar solo. The vocals are off the hinges all the way through.
The second single, the politely worded “Fuck You and Your God“, is reputedly the shortest track in the band’s history — it’s 36 seconds long. But long enough to get your nerves firing and your blood boiling. It’s fast, vicious, enraged, crazed, and lyrically eloquent.
Both songs will be included on a new Mentor album named Horns, Hooves and Horrors (the band do enjoy alliteration, as do I) and that’s scheduled for release by Piranha Music on December 4th.
https://www.piranha-music.com/pre-order/https://e-muzyka.link/MentorOnEveryHornaCrown
https://www.mentor666.com/
https://www.facebook.com/MENTORrock
DEMIURGO (Peru)
Now we come to the first of the three albums I mentioned at the outset. It’s the debut full-length of a fairly new Peruvian band who call themselves Demiurgo. Beginning in 2023 they’ve released a handful of singles, an EP, and a split, but this album — Ego Legis — is my first exposure to their music. It’s scheduled for release on October 31st through Lament of the Shadows Productions (Turkey), but it’s now streaming in full at Bandcamp.
The song that’s set to play first in the Bandcamp stream is the album’s third track, “About Hate in the Will of Kosmos“, and it hooked me so damned hard it nearly pulled my gills apart. It also demonstrates why Demiurgo brand their music “Avant-Garde Black Metal”.
Dissonant, slowly squirming notes set the stage, but it’s what they lead into that sets the big hook — a viciously chattering and rhythmically compulsive riff backed by sledgehammer-strength drum blows. Strangely ringing things continue to happen behind that beastly barrage, and although the big throbbing grooves persist Demiurgo introduce a plethora of other enticing and peculiar musical adventures.
Deploying a variety of tones, the fretwork squeaks, swirls, slithers, and soars. Overlays of ringing keys cascade. The riffing also manically darts and swarms, and the drums eventually discharge furious blast-beats, but the band also significantly slow down, offering some proggy bass-work, big tumbling beats, and swirls of music that sound hallucinatory.
A wild fret-melter of a guitar solo subsequently ensues, along with a humongous bass grumble, further episodes of frantic and eerily flowing melody, and a reminder that tempos are Demiurgo’s playthings.
Oh yeah, I haven’t mentioned the vocals yet. They are insane.
With a mind-blowing spectacle of a song like that one set to lead off, it’s hard to imagine what these unconventional adventurers will do on the album’s nine other songs (one of which is almost 12 1/2 minutes long), but I bet it will be fun to find out!
https://demiurgoblackmetal.bandcamp.com/album/ego-legis
https://www.instagram.com/demiurgoblackmetal
https://www.facebook.com/demiurgodarkness
VĀMĀCĀRA (Poland)
I was an avid fan of Vāmācāra’s 2022 debut album Cosmic Fires: The Enlightenment Reversed, but lost track of their activities, and so it was yet another surprise when I received a Bandcamp alert for their release of a new five-song EP — Destructress of Tantric Asceticism. They describe it thusly:
An eccentric, esoteric fusion of orient and occident.
This is our third attempt at forcing together things that were never meant to fit.
It’s an intricate sculpture carved with a sledgehammer — and fueled by loads of hatred for every kind of hypocrite.
As in the case of Demiurgo’s album above, I’m again reduced to focusing on only one of the EP’s five songs, the one that’s set to play first at Bandcamp. That song, “The Lesser the Serpent, the Greater the Obsession“, is a tremendous head-spinner. You really won’t see where it’s going, which is precisely what makes it such a diabolical delight.
Without attempting to map every mischievous and menacing twist and turn, I’ll say that the song includes grand melodic fanfares but also feverishly twitching and poisonously slithering riffs; bursts of screaming dissonance but also jubilant spinning melodies; drumming that furiously hurtles but also vibrantly gallops, acrobatically tumbles, and menacingly lurches; voices that savagely roar and mercilessly scream but also solemnly chant like monks and cry out en masse as if in the throes of possession. The pacing and the moods are also in near-constant flux.
So far, I’ve also listened to the album’s title song and “Do To Them What They Wish Upon Others“, which are on either side of the one I’ve just written about, and I can vouch that they are as head-spinning, as instrumentally multi-textured, and as generally deranged as “The Lesser the Serpent, the Greater the Obsession“. In both of them the vocals are again a mad marvel.
P.S. While finishing up this column I also listened to the fourth song, the extremely witchy “Nothing to Worship But the Flesh“, and lo and behold, it includes extravagant singing along with the ranging forms of beastly vocal extravagance!
The EP was released by Fiadh Productions (on tape) and the band (digitally) on October 23rd.
https://vamacara.bandcamp.com/album/destructress-of-tantric-asceticism
https://fiadh.bandcamp.com/album/destructress-of-tantric-asceticism
https://www.facebook.com/Vamacaraofficial/
VERET (Finland)
And to close, here’s the second album I promised at the outset. It’s the debut full-length of yet another band I don’t recall ever hearing before, though they do have a demo and two EPs to their name at M-A. The album is Coven of Sodoma, it includes eye-catching and head-scrambling cover art by Luciana Nedelea, and it hit the streets on October 4th.
For the third and final time today I’m resorting to the “cheat” of focusing mainly on just one song, and this time it’s the album’s title track, which opens the proceedings.
Not having heard the band’s music before, I wasn’t sure what would happen (though I did see the Bandcamp tags for death, black, and thrash metal). The song’s overture left me no wiser, though that beautifully performed, ancient-sounding, and melancholic acoustic guitar instrumental turned out to be a clue that Veret have more up their sleeves than a talent for cooking up heart-pumping riffs, a talent this song demonstrates after the overture concludes.
And yes, after the overture concludes Veret discharge a dense, sandstorm-textured swarm of riffing that makes a striking impression, and their drummer drives a furious pace. Within those caustic gales of sound, the lead guitar frenetically quivers and miserably (and mysteriously) wails, and the riffing also repeatedly shifts, as do the drums, revealing greater and lesser degrees of madness and emotional mutilation.
The vocals are as unsettling as the sudden appearance of an enraged demon inches from your face, with fangs fully bared and claws digging in. They are ugly and demented, something of a contrast to the deftly executed and elaborate guitar patterns, which include a richly whirling solo and another that grandly soars.
And yes, although the song is unmistakable vicious, the guitar work is quite marvelous and even elevating. I do very much look forward to making my way through the six songs that follow this one – and hope you’ll do the same.
https://veret666.bandcamp.com/album/coven-of-sodoma
https://www.instagram.com/veret666