As one dictionary tells us, the German word zeitgeist means “the defining spirit or mood of a particular period of history as shown by the ideas and beliefs of the time”. It combines two words that mean those very things — time and spirit.
Now, take a guess about how the Swedish band CHILD think about our current age, given that they’ve named their new album Shitegeist. Continue reading »
(Today we present an excellent interview that Comrade Aleks conducted with the two members of the Italian black/doom band Urluk, with apologies to all concerned for our delay in publishing it.)
The grim Italian duo Urluk was founded by M. (drums, vocals) and U. (guitars) in 2020. They started their underground career with the EP Loss (2022), followed by the full-length More after a formal one-year-long pause. Five new compositions fit into 34 minutes, slightly ahead of the first release in total duration.
More is the spiritual successor to Loss, and the main motives of these five compositions are identical: loneliness, despair, occultism, and obsession with negative states, clothed in the form of black doom.
It is worth noting that “Urluk” in the Lombard dialect means “tawny owl”, an owl often found in this region and, in the context of the album, associated with abandoned dwellings and forests. In this strange way, the duo demonstrates a close connection with their native land and emphasizes an interest in mysticism and darkness in various forms. Continue reading »
(Here’s DGR‘s review of a new EP by Creepsylvanian splatterthrashers Ghoul, out now on the Tankcrimes label.)
If you’ve been trawling around the underground long enough, you’ve likely crossed paths with the crazed crossover thrash and death metal hybrid that is Ghoul; they’re a name that probably needs little introduction at this point – having battled out a career for years that is combination tongue-in-cheek shock horror, community theater, public-access TV, pirate radio, and puppet show.
The band, in all their murderous muppety glory, seem to appear out of the ether at shows and crank out crazed sets before vanishing into the night. You’d never know that they’ve been subsisting on a series of splits and singles since 2016’s Dungeon Bastards and prior to that had been on a slightly more sollid rotating albums/eps collection every three or four years.
The upshot of this is that Ghoul have five full-lengths to their name already, but their most recent EP Noxious Concoctions is the most substantial collection of material – four originals songs, one cover, for a grand total of eighteen and a half minutes of music – that the masked madmen have cranked out in almost eight years. Continue reading »
We’ve been following the progress of the Dutch black metal band Verwoed (the solo project of Erik Bleijenberg), and becoming increasingly intrigued and viscerally moved by each successive release. And so it was exciting news to learn that Wolves of Hades and Argento Records will be releasing a new Verwoed album named The Mother on March 29th. Getting the chance to premiere a song from it was another thrill.
The song is called “The Madman’s Dance“, and madness does burn within the music, with such intensity and such wholly enveloping power that it’s easy to feel consumed by it, witnessing not merely derangement but bloody splendor. Continue reading »
(Today we bring you Comrade Aleks‘ interview with guitarist/drummer Barkayal of the German black metal band Dethroned, with roots in the ’90s and a new album released in December 2023 by Dominance of Darkness Records.)
Germany’s Dethroned was founded in 1991 under another name, Mysticism. They changed it to Dethroned only in 1995 and continued to record demos until their split-up in 1999. A reunion in 2007 wasn’t fruitful at first, and it took ten more years to record the band’s first full-length Bluontrunst. But six more years passed, and now Dethroned have returned with their sophomore work A Bridge to Eternal Darkness.
The band consists of its original guitarist and drummer since 2007, Barkayal, his bandmate (vocalist and guitarist) since 1995, Nebulah Danyal, another vocalist Golzarath, the guitarist John Never, and bass player Corpse. Together, they provided quite a convincing act of blasphemy, and Barkayal has a few things to say about it. Continue reading »
(Chris Luedtke wrote the following come-on for a fest set to explode this coming weekend in the Seattle area. Check it out and come if you can.)
For those out in the Pacific Northwest, specifically those in the Seattle area, if you are looking for some blasting, thrashing, grinding live music, look no further than 206 Blast Fest.
What’s 206 Blast Fest? A grindcore, noisecore, hardcore festival featuring twenty-two bands. Some you may recognize, some you may not. I’m not going to give a complete breakdown of everyone playing, so I encourage interested parties to investigate anything not covered here. And I encourage you to go if you possess the ability to support live and underground music. The festival is presented by Audio/Violence Productions and is also the medium where you can get tickets to the fest. A link will be provided at the bottom of this article, but first an overview of a few bands playing. Continue reading »
Freezing winds howl through the Earth’s atmosphere in the far northern and far southern latitudes, but they can howl through our minds too, regardless of where we dwell. In realms of music, black metal brings the howling cold in ways more biting and dreadful than most genres, with the gales often whipped by the furious wings of fallen angels.
And so it’s not so perplexing to find a black metal band named Frozen Winds that originated on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus, no matter the usual sun and warmth of those climes. They delved into occult subjects and found ancient expressions of the Left Hand Path that led them into the gales, and also into the ritualism of mystics.
More than 17 years into their existence, Frozen Winds have moved their music to evolve, building upon their previous releases as well as live performances, sharing stages with the likes of Rotting Christ, Kawir, Septic Flesh and The Dead Creed. Where the movements have now taken them will be revealed in a new album (only their second) named Keys to Eschaton, and is partially revealed today through our lyric-video premiere of the first single from the album, a fabulous song named “Theosphoros“. Continue reading »
(This is Todd Manning‘s enthusiastic review of the new album by Hulder, which will be released on February 9th by 20 Buck Spin.)
It is the critics’ temptation to always glorify the radical and experimental, but sometimes it’s important to realize genius when it is executed within a genre’s traditional confines. Such is the brilliance of Hulder. Their latest full-length, Verses In Oath, is an exercise in everything that has made black metal such an addictive sound. The embrace of ancient violence and forest mysticism is strong here and they don’t radically deviate from the template, they are just doing it better than almost anyone else right now. Continue reading »
(December 2023 brought us a new album by Dusk, one of the true cult doom bands from the ’90s, and it proved to be a tremendous full-length return to form, 28 years after their debut album. We proudly premiered a video for one of the new songs last year, and now follow that with Comrade Aleks‘ interview of Dusk co-founder Steve Crane – with apologies to the two of them for how long it took us to publish this.)
Back in the early ’90s, the North American death-doom scene was neither diverse nor rich. The bands that made this music in this period can be counted on one hand, but the first among them would be Avernus, Evoken, Morgion, Winter, and Dusk. Each band has its own history, and as for Dusk, they lasted only five years from their formation in 1995, leaving behind the now cult full-length …Majestic Thou in Ruin and a couple of smaller releases.
Somehow the band managed to reunite in 2015 with an almost entirely original lineup, only changing the drummer: Tim Beyer (guitars, keyboards), Steve Gross (keyboards, guitars), Steve Crane (vocals, bass) and Sean Smith (drums). Dusk recorded a mini-album Withdraw in 2018 and laid low for a while. It was a question of time, and now the second full-length album, Dissolve into Ash, was released in December 2023. Continue reading »
(Daniel Barkasi returns today with the second of his monthly NCS columns devoted to spreading the word about musical obscurities. What you’ll find below are reviews and streams of 8 records released from around the globe in January.)
To begin, thank you to all who read the first edition of this monthly column. I’m glad folks seemed to enjoy the musical expeditions of my often wacky brain. May you discover something to your liking that’ll (hopefully) give you plenty of enjoyment and respite from the madness of the everyday hustle.
This edition covers records that were released in January, which is how we’ll be covering things month-to-month. This time, we have a cornucopia of flavors to indulge; from atmospheric, epic, and relaxing, to the downright filthy. True that the first month of the calendar is typically a relatively slow month in terms of memorable releases, but this year has started off quite favorably. Plenty of under the surface delights to tear into, so let us begin faster than Jerry Seinfeld’s supposed claim of being quite fleet of foot. We choose to run! Continue reading »