Jun 092021
 

 

When last we wrote about the Finnish black metal band Marras the occasion was the premiere of a song from their strikingly good 2019 debut album Where Light Comes to Die. A new album, Endtime Sermon, provides the occasion for us to revisit them, through yet another premiere. Like the first album, this second one will be released by Spread Evil Productions. It’s destined to hit the streets on July 9th.

A story lies behind the song we’re presenting today, “As Night Gets Darker“. It’s a story inspired by Finnish writer Boris Hurtta, who just passed away in February 2021, and thus the song is a tribute to him. The band tell the tale as follows: Continue reading »

Jun 082021
 

 

Last year Dying Victims Productions released Raw Nights, a 20-minute vinyl/digital record that combined the German band Karloff’s new EP and the tracks from their debut demo. After encountering it, I wrote: “Karloff’s formulation of raw punk and black metal is undeniably sinister, and it runs like a wild wolf-pack on the hunt (or an angry gang marauding through mean streets), but it has made me feel not just glad to be alive, but kind of rapturous too. Its feral, stripped-down attack and high-voltage energy appeal at a primal level, and the immediately infectious nature of the songs makes them easy to stick with, and to use as a means of lighting a fire to any playlist whenever they pop up.”

It was thus exciting to learn that Karloff were following up Raw Nights with a debut album entitled The Appearing, which will also be released by Dying Victims (on July 30th), and we’re just as excited to now premiere a video for an album track named “Hate Consumer“. Continue reading »

Jun 082021
 

 

Peace-loving people who believe that problems should be patiently worked out through calm discussion and empathetic understanding should stop reading now and go elsewhere. Listeners who are looking for melody and nuance in their music should head for the exits too. On the other hand, if you’re really pissed off, about anything, and you’re looking for a way to channel raw fury, or just happen to be in the mood for a violent sonic beating, you’ve come to the right place.

To satisfy yearnings for catharsis through bludgeoning, we present a video for “Unfit Coward“, the closing track off the new album by the Floridian deathcore band Kill the Imposter, which is aptly named The Violence Sessions. The album was released on May 28th through The Legend Agency and has been leaving deep smoking craters in concrete ever since. Continue reading »

Jun 072021
 

 

In February of this year the band Knives from Bilbao, Spain, released an explosive new record named Collapse. In advance of that release we featured its first single, “The Unknown“. With lyrics that expelled politically charged fury in blisteringly furious tones, that song melded punk cadences and bone-grinding riffs delivered with massive, chainsawing distortion, and coupled that with bursts of blaring melodic defiance and feverish bass outbursts, as well as a hellish breakdown.

That opening single truly was an electrifying discharge. But the balance of the tracks on Collapse proved to be equally thrilling, albeit in somewhat different ways. For example, the opener “Martyr” begins in soul-stricken and haunting fashion but then becomes a rain of megaton warheads, and then a fierce, galloping charge, and then a spasm of violence. It will give your spine a vigorous jolting, but also includes spit-fire soloing and the kind of rocketing, sky-high melodic riffing that gets hearts pounding.

And from there the band used Collapse to elaborate on their riveting brand of death/punk from one track to the next, bringing to bear one crusher after another, deploying humongously heavy chugs, incendiary leads, blood-spraying vocals, and gripping melodic accents (both grim and glorious) that keep the emotional intensity in the red zone.

Today it’s our pleasure to premiere a video for yet another song off Collapse, one entitled “Was It Worth It?“, which we hope will introduce still more listeners to Knive’s tumultuous talents. Continue reading »

Jun 062021
 

 

Following up their 2016 debut EP Light the Torches, the German black metal band Fiat Nox will release their first album on June 25th through The Crawling Chaos Records. The album’s well-chosen name is Archive of Nightmares, and today, in a rare Sunday premiere for our site, we’re presenting a stream of the title track.

The label describes the album this way: “At the spiritual core of the music lies the profound and abysmal side of man, as he – inextricably bound to a world ensnared in perpetual descent within the maw of night – cannot but revel in negativity”. Those words are equally well-chosen, because the music is itself abysmal, but revels in madness. The song we’re premiering today is a great example of the band’s sinister powers, presenting a multi-faceted work that’s hallucinatory, hopeless, tormented, and viscerally pulse-pounding. Continue reading »

Jun 042021
 

 

Desolate subjects and a desperate mission animate the music on Kvadrat’s debut EP Ψυχικη Αποσυνθεση (“mental decay”), which we’re now premiering in full. Rather than embracing folklore or mysticism, this Greek black metal duo grapple with the kind of severe personal estrangement that reduces a mind to a frightening and hopeless prison, a vessel of fear, frustration, pain, and desperation, capable of producing not only depression but also hatred and a desire for oblivion.

The lyrics speak of life denying us light, of time melting all hope, of toxic rain flooding the paths of salvation, of sounds of hysteria ringing from bottomless pits of madness, and of rising fires of destruction as a last resort.

And with that subject matter in mind, the music pours gasoline on the gates of an unwelcoming reality, and ignites it, perhaps as a way of shedding light on the causes of terrible predicaments, or as a violent means of freeing lost souls from mental paralysis.

Be forewarned: This music asks no quarter and gives none. These four songs are absolutely breathtaking in their intensity and sonic power — dense, near-overwhelming, onslaughts of sound capable of swallowing a listener whole — but they are somehow also strangely mesmerizing. The music rings as well as ravages, and while it’s unnerving in its discordance, it can also seem heavenly — if the heavens were on fire. Continue reading »

Jun 042021
 

 

The German black metal band Friisk made a strong impression with their first EP, De Doden van’t Waterkant, in 2018. They followed that last year with a split release, joined by the French band Loth, but they’ve mainly devoted their creative energies over the last two years to the development of a debut album. Entitled …un torügg bleev blot Sand, it has now been announced for release on July 2nd via Vendetta Records.

Friisk draw inspiration from the landscapes of the East Frisian region in which they live — and the lyrics themselves were written in German, Low German, and the Sater Frisian dialect — as well as from a need to confront the negative experiences of individual human beings, and to explore in cathartic fashion the realities of fear, devastation, depression, illness, and death.

The resulting music, as displayed on the new album, is emotionally powerful on multiple levels. It surges with ravaging intensity, hostile and assaulting. But at least equally, the music is also atmospheric. In its melancholy melodies it provides an authentic reflection of the unavoidable emotional damage that’s inherent in the human condition, yet also points the way to the possibility of hope.

We have a great example of these facets of Friisk’s music in the gripping and intensely memorable song we’re premiering today: “Dem Wind entgegen“. Continue reading »

Jun 032021
 

 

Indiana’s Graveripper are open and obvious in their admiration of Germanic thrash, but equally attracted to the stylings of early Norwegian black metal, as well as the rollicking riots of first-wave black metal. As the band’s founder, vocalist/guitarist Corey Parks has quipped, “We’ve described ourselves as if Exodus and Kreator had a kid and Immortal babysat frequently. We’ve received comparisons to Venom, Toxic Holocaust, and Skeletonwitch, which I can see. I think there is a lot of Midnight in there, and bands like Bonehunter, Bewitcher — all that.”

Of course, it’s one thing to tick off all those influences and another thing to witness how well Graveripper have drawn together the ingredients of ’80s death/thrash, blackened speed metal, and savage rock ‘n’ roll — while also incorporating dark and memorable melodies so seamlessly into their blood-rushing onslaughts.

And witness it you shall, because today we’re presenting a full stream of the band’s explosive and moving new EP, Radiated Remains, the day before its release by Wise Blood Records. Continue reading »

Jun 032021
 

 

Narcissus Rising, the second album by the Austrian band The Negative Bias, was released almost two years ago — though due to the pandemic time-dilation effect it seems like two decades ago. That album, which we enthusiastically premiered and reviewed here in advance of its release by ATMF, opened many eyes to the band’s impressive but unsettling talents. We wrote then:

“The new album by the Austrian alchemists The Negative Bias is so ambitious in its conception, so extravagant in its composition, and so tremendously powerful in its execution that it merits the often-overused term “visionary”. It becomes a form of breathtakingly dramatic musical theater that seems calculated to create shock and awe, to assault and bedazzle the senses, forcibly shattering commonplace perceptions in order to make the mind more receptive to new and unexpected visions.”

It was thus exciting to learn that The Negative Bias had recorded a new EP for release this year, and today we have the pleasure of presenting a full stream of that EP — entitled Tapeworm Pyramids — the day before its issuance via Vendetta Records. Continue reading »

Jun 022021
 

 

This coming Friday, June 4th, Metal Assault Records will release Narci, the second album by the anonymous international collective known as Circle of Sighs, and today we bring you a full stream of all its wonders — and the wonders are indeed manifold.

“Progressive-synth-doom” is a label you might have seen for their constantly surprising music, but that barely scratches the surface. More revealing are the PR characterizations which drop references to glitch-pop, prog rock, dark jazz, industrial gaze, and grindcore influences, or which remark upon the band’s exploration of “the outer reaches of metal’s avant garde”. Not for naught is the album recommended for fans of such disparate groups as Yob, Tubeway Army, Pallbearer, King Crimson, Depeche Mode, Thomas Dolby, Brian Eno, and Neurosis — and that’s not nearly an exhaustive list. Continue reading »