SATURDAY SLAUGHTER, SWEDISH STYLE: TORTURE DIVISION, MORDBRAND, PAGANIZER, JOHANSSON & SPECKMANN

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Dec 272014
 

 

It’s been a little while since I posted some real Swedish fucking death metal on the site, long enough that I was starting to get the shakes, the night sweats, the dry mouth, and the volcanic gut rumbles. So I decided to do something about it. I’m tending to my needs, and bringing you some slaughter for your Saturday at the same time. But as you’ll find out, this is also a very bittersweet post for me to write.

TORTURE DIVISION

I first discovered Torture Division in March 2011, when they released a cover of Mastodon’s “Iron Tusk” from the Leviathan album, accompanied by an introduction that included these words:

“This is how we would have made this song, had we written it in the first place. But we didn’t, we just thought it would be nice to MASTODON to make a proper tune out of it. Kidding, kidding… MASTODON‘s cool. They are no TORTURE DIVISION, but hey — can’t win them all.”

I became an immediate fan, and have remained one in the years that followed (you can still hear that “Iron Tusk” cover in the first Mordbrand feature I prepared). I wrote about most of their other releases over the last three years (collected here) and liked every goddamn one of them. And now, sad to say, I’m writing about their final effort. Continue reading »

ELEMENTAL NIGHTMARES RACES TO THE FINISH LINE

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Dec 262014
 

 

We’ve been writing about the Elemental Nightmares music project since July 2013, when it was barely more than a bright idea. We followed its progress closely and posted about each of the first four splits when they were released (and even premiered two of the songs from one of the splits). And then, in a big rush, Elemental Nightmares released the last two splits over the space of the last two days, with Parts VI and VII coming on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, respectively. (This accelerated finish was actually part of the release schedule as it was announced back in August, but still caught me by surprise.)

For those who haven’t yet heard of this project, it began as a vinyl subscription series and changed a bit as time passed. In its final (and now complete form), it has released seven 10″ vinyl splits featuring songs from 28 up-and-coming bands, most of which we had previously written about at this site. Each release has featured one segment of a single large piece of art, and you can now see the complete work at the top of this post (click the image to view a larger version). It’s fantastic.

I subscribed to this series as soon as I could and have relished the arrival of each installment. Later, Elemental Nightmares began offering each split for sale on a standalone basis, and the music is also available for download on Bandcamp. I’m not sure whether vinyl copies of each split are still available, but if they are, they can be acquired via the Elemental Nightmares online store, here: Continue reading »

A CELEBRATION OF THE DAY, WITH KRODA AND MISANTROF ANTICHRISTMAS VOL. 7

 Free Shit, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Dec 252014
 

 

I used to write an annual Christmas rant at this site. The first one I wrote, creatively entitled “FUCK CHRISTMAS”, still gets a few hundred new page views around this time every year despite the fact that it’s now more than four years old. I haven’t changed my mind about what I wrote four years ago, but I also don’t really have anything new to say. I guess I’ve also mellowed — somewhat — and now spend more time focusing on things that genuinely are worth celebrating during this season instead of things that turn my stomach. And so it will be today.

In an early display of marketing acumen (to be repeated in many other ways, both before and since), the Church created the festival of Christmas by co-opting and incorporating many of the traditions of various pagan celebrations that had occurred around the time of the winter solstice for many centuries before the birth of Christ. Celebrations of the birth of the Sun, for example, became celebrations of the birth of the Son. And in our time, of course, commerce has successfully co-opted the celebration of the Son, drowning it in an orgy of gift-giving.

But putting all that history to one side, we still have things worth celebrating today that have nothing to do with the traditional trappings and calculated origins of Christmas — time spent with family and friends, and of course, metal! And for me, it seems appropriate to celebrate with some excellent pagan metal, plus a compilation of Anti-Christmas music that costs nothing. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: DEVOURING STAR, KRES, LEGION OF ANDROMEDA, WORSHIP

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Dec 242014
 

 

Rumor has it there’s some holiday tomorrow, with lots of talk about happy and jolly. I’m not feeling it myself. I’m more in the mood for head wreckage. I found these new songs over the last 24 hours that do the job nicely — music that’s full of power and passion, and no joy.

DEVOURING STAR

Last month we had the pleasure of premiering (here) a new song by a Finnish horde named Devouring Star from their forthcoming debut album Through Lung and Heart, on the Daemon Worship label. Since then two more songs from the album have been revealed, the latest one just this morning. Austin Weber described the song we premiered as “an apocalyptic ode to true worshipers of the dark arts, teeming with sourness and bitter pain and delivering a bludgeoning and a sense of horror comparable to few.” The new song is no less decimating.

“The Dreaming Tombs” is an unmitigated onslaught of percussive hammer blows, howling riffs, and wretched vocal extremity. The music swirls like a cyclonic vortex, broken in places by a massive doom-drenched stomps. It’s bleak, black, brutally ferocious music that very effectively creates an atmosphere of calamity and collapse. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: XIBALBA, GREY AURA, AETHYR , SWAMP WITCH

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Dec 222014
 

 

I spent most of my listening time this past weekend delving into shades of black (and also trying to narrow down the candidates for our Most Infectious Song list). But I also did a bit of additional searching for new things to recommend, and here’s what I found — along with a contribution from Grant Skelton who has a recommendation of his own at the end.

XIBALBA

I discovered that last Friday Xibalba debuted a song named “Invierno” from their forthcoming LP, Tierra Y Libertad. The album is coming out on January 27 via Southern Lord and sports fantastic cover art by Dan Seagrave.

Based on past experience, I was expecting something crushing and savage, and I wasn’t disappointed. “Invierno” is one big sonic meat tenderizer. Everything about it is immensely heavy and dark, driven by a combination of needling and piledriving riffs, and with a couple of skull-smashing breakdowns. It’s an exclusive stream, so go here to listen: Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: LVTHN, NECROSAVANT, OUTER HEAVEN, GNAW THEIR TONGUES, CONDOR, BÖLZER AND SPECTRAL LORE,

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHADES OF BLACK  3 Responses »
Dec 212014
 

 

I suppose this post could be considered Part 2 of a collection I began yesterday (here). It’s a big selection of music I discovered over the last couple of days that in widely varying degrees incorporate elements of black and death metal into the sound. And I do mean “widely varying” — no two of these bands sound alike, but I hope you’ll agree they all sound good.

LVTHN

LVTHN is a Belgian black metal band with three short releases to its credit, all of them appearing in 2014. The first one, Adversarialism, I reviewed here. The next two of those releases came this month — a four-song EP entitled The Grand Uncreation (which includes a cover of a Katharsis song) and a split with Lluvia entitled Illuminantes Tenebrae. Both are worthy of separate reviews, but I’m so pressed for time that I’m afraid I’ll never write them. I decided this short comment is better than nothing.

In a nutshell, these five new LVTHN songs are potent examples of bestial black art — torrential hailstorms of knife-edged riffs undergirded by the distant rumble of percussion and pierced by flesh-rending vocals, with waves of dark, dramatic melody moving through the music like the migration of leviathans. It’s gripping, galvanizing, ravaging music, with just enough well-placed breaks in the onslaught to prevent total sensory overload.  And the Katharsis cover is obliterating. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: LEVIATHAN, HUMAN BODIES, DEAD IN THE MANGER, HIC IACET

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  7 Responses »
Dec 202014
 

 

Here is a collection of recommended items from the blacker end of the metal spectrum that I spotted and heard yesterday; I have some others that I’ll feature tomorrow. I wrote most of this last night, just before the alcohol-soaked holiday party hosted by the place where I work. The parts that don’t make any sense were written this morning as I began the long road to recovery.

LEVIATHAN

Yesterday brought additional details from Profound Lore about the next album by Leviathan: As previously disclosed, the album’s title is Scar Sighted; it will be released March 3 digitally and on CD; it was produced, engineered, and mixed by Billy Anderson; and it includes nine tracks. There was also this info about the album’s packaging, with a reference to the artwork I’ve included at the top of this post:

“Scar Sighted” will be packaged as a boxed CD edition (the only version of the CD this will be available as) which will come with eleven two-sided inserts featuring exclusive paintings by Jef Whitehead himself (one of them being the one pictured, LEVIATHAN logo watermarked specifically for online purposes, there is no actual front cover for “Scar Sighted”). The vinyl edition, to be released a month or so after the CD/digital version will also be specially packaged and will be released via the artists’ own Devout Records imprint (in which we will directly update you on its progress in due time).

This is an album I’m eager to hear, in part because I have a feeling it will include some surprises (see this interview of Wrest for reasons why I think that). This is the track list: Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: KEEP OF KALESSIN, PSYCHO CALIFORNIA, DARK FUNERAL, BONEMECHANICS, GATEKRASHÖR, MAZE OF TERROR

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Dec 182014
 

 

Five days have passed since I compiled the last round-up of news and new music. I’ve seen and heard many things I would have preferred to write about as they were appearing, but I’ve been otherwise occupied with year-end lists — not writing them myself, of course, but doing the much more important work of embedding album art and song streams and currecting typoz. This takes time, and after doing it for more than a hundred different albums over the space of five days, my brain now has the consistency of porridge.

So, to give my brain a chance to gel again, I’ve taken a break from my immensely important editorial duties and collected the following items for your entertainment (and mine). Though these notices are not all timely, I believe they are all worthy of attention.

KEEP OF KALESSIN

What you see above is the gatefold album art for Epistemology, the new album by Norway’s Keep of Kalessin, which will be released on February 16 by Indie Recordings. The artwork was chosen by the band based on a contest in which more than a hundred artists submitted designs. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: CALIFORNIA DEATHFEST, ALKALOID, THULCANDRA, MANILLA ROAD, WERESQUATCH, AND A VIKING CHANT

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Dec 132014
 

 

Happy hangover day, aka Saturday. I myself do not have a hangover, though not for lack of trying to sew the seeds for one last night. I can’t really explain the good fortune, but I’ll take it. Having a relatively clear head this morning, I did a bit of catching up on metal news and song premieres and randomly selected the following items for your entertainment and edification. Most of these items include eye-catching artwork, too.

CALIFORNIA DEATHFEST

This first piece of news sure caught me by surprise yesterday. It appears that the organizers of the Maryland Deathfest have decided to franchise their operation. They’ve announced a three-day event named California Deathfest that will take place from October 9-11, 2015, at the Oakland Metro Operahouse in Oakland, California. The show on Friday, October 9, will feature grind, punk, and hardcore bands, and the shows on October 10 and 11 will feature death, black, and doom metal bands.

Unlike MDF, there will only be one stage, in a club setting, though if this first California Deathfest proves to be a success I’m guessing it will grow — and given the stellar line-up for this debut event, it will surely succeed. Continue reading »

VIDEOGRAPHY: DEVIN TOWNSEND — “MARCH OF THE POOZERS”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Dec 122014
 

 

I’m getting kind of a slow start on today’s blog posts. I had a long, glorious night at the Mortals/Sólstafir/Pallbearer show in Seattle (about which I’ll have some garbled words and blurry photos to share later on), followed by four hours of sleep, to be followed by a grind at the old fuckin’ day job, so yeah — I’m moving pretty slowly.

But rather than have nothing new at the top of the page for the next couple of hours I thought I’d post the first piece of music I saw upon switching on the computer and scanning my e-mails. It’s a lyric video for “March of the Poozers” from Devin Townsend’s Z2 album (which can be acquired here). The press release also included a statement by DT that I’ll reproduce after the video.

And now, Bow To Your Alien Ambassadors! Continue reading »

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