AN NCS PREMIERE: ADARRAK — “WITHERING”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
May 132021
 

 

Adarrak is a new progressive death metal band founded by Singaporean guitarist extraordinaire Emmanuel George Bi and fleshed out by the talents of vocalist Gustavo “Kike” Valderrama (Sol De Sangre, Headcrusher) and bassist Zigor Munoz. Guest performers on their debut album, Ex Oriente Lux, include drummer Robin Stone (ex-The Amenta) and guitar soloists Nicholas Chang, Edmund “Quekstein” Quek, and the great Marty Friedman.

Moreover, the album was mixed and mastered by none other than Dan Swanö at Unisound Studios, who has commented: “Adarrak is truly progressive since they are not afraid to implement all kinds of metal into the mix, anything from epic leads to insane blast parts.”

And if all that information didn’t build some heated intrigue within your brain, the song we’re presenting today from Ex Oriente Lux surely will — though it might also send your mind into the sky and explode it like fireworks. The name of the song is “Withering“. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: SOL DE SANGRE, OF WOLVES, CEREBRAL ROT, HIRSI, THE CROOKED WHISPERS, SVNEATR, CAVEMAN CULT

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May 082021
 

 

Even after yesterday’s humongous round-up of new music, I’m still playing catch-up with new songs and videos, and picked seven more entries to include here today. These are mostly individual songs, but I’ve mixed in a pair of new EPs. As usual, part of my goal in making this selection was to provide diverse experiences.

SOL DE SANGRE (Colombia)

On April 30th this killer Colombian band released a new EP named Despair Distiller, and I’m way late in crowing about how really fucking good it is. Better late than never, I hope! Continue reading »

OVERFLOWING STREAMS: AMENRA, ANCIENT WISDOM, COFFIN LURKER, DEFLESHED, ENSLAVED, HANGING GARDEN, HELL STRIKE, IDOLOS, KILLING ADDICTION, KORGONTHURUS, OPHIDIAN I, PERILAXE OCCLUSION, SVARTA SANNINGAR

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May 072021
 

 

The usual insanity of our in-box reached a fever pitch overnight, because it’s another Bandcamp Friday. That fever has been building all week in anticipation of the day, with the typical flood of new music reaching typhoon proportions. I’ve diverted some of that flood into this collection, a baker’s dozen of new songs and videos that range from the dreamy to the decimating, and includes both the re-surfacing of old gods and the emergence of promising new names – but without the usual artwork or my usual wordy reflections. Not everything is available on Bandcamp, but where it is available there, I’ve included links.

Mother’s Day is also on Sunday, but thankfully that doesn’t seem to have added to the torrent of releases. In catch-up mode, I’ll continue recommending more new music that day and on Saturday (if you don’t keep swimming, you drown). By the way, for those of you who don’t live in the U.S., “Mother’s Day” does not stand for Motherfucker’s Day, so most of you won’t have any reason to celebrate.

Continue reading »

OVERFLOWING STREAMS: AT THE GATES, BEFORE THE DAWN, WOMBBATH, FRACTAL UNIVERSE, SEEMING EMPTINESS, IMPURE WILHELMINA, HESPER PAYNE, CULTES DES GHOULES, GRAVE MIASMA, VILDHJARTA, PERTURBATOR, MAGGOT CROWN

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
May 012021
 

 

It’s been a long time since I resorted to this Overflowing Streams format for spreading the word about new music I’ve enjoyed, but last week seemed more even more insane than usual — just a ton of new tracks were revealed by old gods, new gods, and assorted minor demons. As bloated as the following collection may seem, it’s still far from complete — I’ll include a few more in tomorrow’s SHADES OF BLACK column.

Without further ado, here we go with lots of sights sounds and not many words, though I do encourage you to add your own in the Comments.

AT THE GATES

Speaking of old gods, I might have included the news about Darkthrone album No. 19 (Eternal Hails), but there’s no music yet, so I’ll wait. You can peep the cover art here. But among the old gods, At the Gates did give us a new song, and I had to lead with it. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: PORTAL, REGARDE LES HOMMES TOMBER, MOROKH, THIS ENDING, MORTUARY SPAWN, NADJA, ALUSTRIUM, BEAST MODE

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Apr 242021
 

 

Because I got a late start on the day and have a lot of personal shit to attend to, my original plan was just to pick a couple or three songs and make this an abbreviated round-up. But I kept coming across tracks and videos that I really wanted to share, so this collection mushroomed.

It also amused me, as it often does, to build in some stylistic whiplash, particularly in the arrangement of the last half of these picks. Hope you find something here that will make your day a better one.

PORTAL (Australia)

I probably overlooked one or more news missives, but I wasn’t aware until yesterday that Portal had a new album on the way. When I discovered that fact, it produced the kind of a blood-congealing yet spine-tingling experience I usually have when wondering what new horrors will be headed our way from this band. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: DÖDSRIT, ANGSTSKRÍG, YOUR FAULT, GHOSTBOUND, UNENDLICH, HAGEL, GOATBLOOD

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Apr 222021
 

 

If extreme metal were a big map pinned to a wall and you got a running start and hurled the contents of a bucket of paint at it, the scattered blots would give you something like the following collection of songs and videos — though one of the splashes lands off the map altogether (I put that one dead center in this playlist, surrounded by everything else).

DÖDSRIT (Netherlands/Sweden)

I’m leading off with “Shallow Graves“, because it so thoroughly swept me off my feet right from the start, thanks to the thrill of its opening riff, the pulse-pounding impact of the racing drums, and the grandeur of the panoramic cascades. The song changes, moving through a variety of rhythms and tempos as well as variations in the riffing that alters the moods, though the vocals are blisteringly intense at all times. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: AN AUTUMN FOR CRIPPLED CHILDREN, THY CATAFALQUE, AKIAVEL, SIDEREAN, VIOLATED GRAVE, [4672], WINTER ETERNAL

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Apr 172021
 

 

Roadburn Redux is going on right now. It should be a “must watch, must listen” event for me (and for you), but I’ve had too many distractions the last few days to glue myself to my computer and take it all in. Sadly, I can’t do that this weekend either. All I’ve done so far is to check out a few songs and videos, and I’ve included two of those (which were premieres) at the front of today’s round-up — along with a bunch of other good stuff I discovered over the last 24 hours.

To see the full line-up of events at Roadburn Redux go HERE. You’ll see that it includes both live and pre-recorded music, some of it full sets and some of it individual songs and videos, including premieres. You’ll also see that if you have missed something, the streams and videos will remain on-line at the Redux site until the evening of April 20th.

AN AUTUMN FOR CRIPPLED CHILDREN (Netherlands)

Next month this excellent Dutch band will release their ninth album, As The Morning Dawns We Close Our Eyes. At Roadburn Redux they premiered one of its songs along with a video for it. That song, “Melancholia“, is true to its name in some of its moods (which have a wistful quality) — but the rambunctiousness of the rhythm section, the vibrancy of the gleaming guitar harmonies, and the soaring brilliance in the high end are bursting with life (and the strangled harshness of the vocals are vicious). Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: DIE APOKALYPTISCHEN REITER, ΛΔΛΜ, ANHARAT, GO AHEAD AND DIE, CHADHEL, TOOTH AND CLAW

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Apr 162021
 

 

Since we’ve only had two posts today, and because I found myself with a little extra time this morning, I decided to get a head-start on the usual Saturday round-up of new songs and videos. As is sometimes the case, there’s not a lot of rhyme or reason to why I chose the following items, and there’s a risk of whiplash as you make your way from one to the next. There’s also a greater-than-usual percentage of videos included here — I think they’re all very good in different ways.

I will come back later when I have a bit more time and add the rest of the usual artwork and links.

DIE APOKALYPTISCHEN REITER (Germany)

Savage, crazed, blazing, and viscerally propulsive in its tribal rhythms — those are the immediate impressions of this first song, though I must admit that the wild and transfixing video that accompanies the song is a big reason why I picked it. It suits the music supremely well. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (PART 2): SPECTRAL LORE, DEMERSUS AD NIHILUM, KAFIRUN, OMEGA

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Apr 142021
 

 

Although there wasn’t much rhyme or reason to the musical parameters of Part 1 of today’s roundup, Part 2 is a little more coherent since it uniformly leans into black metal. However, to suggest that these four songs follow a consistent pattern would be wrong — each one sounds very different from the rest.

SPECTRAL LORE (Greece)

My first choice is “Φονικό Φως (Murderous Light)“, which surfaced as a digital single on Bandcamp yesterday. It was originally written for and released as part of Art Against Censorship, a compilation of 36 songs from Greek musicians to protest a law that was intended to target and silence radical political artists.

That comp was released in February of this year as a free download (here), and I managed to overlook it. It obviously includes a ton of music, and most of it is from bands whose names I don’t recognize, so one benefit of Spectral Lore‘s single will be to help draw attention to it. (I’m not surprised to see a Yovel song at the close of the comp.) Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (PART 1): THE MONOLITH DEATHCULT, DANNY ELFMAN, HIRAES, GABESTOK

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Apr 142021
 

 

I found time last night to rumble through a lot of new or newly discovered music, and enough time today to stitch together a two-part round-up. There’s not much rhyme or reason as to why I put these first four in Part 1, because the music is kind of all over the map. It would have been even more hard-to-classify if I’d included Mick Jagger‘s new jam with Dave Grohl, which I do like despite the silliness of the lyrics.

THE MONOLITH DEATHCULT (Netherlands)

Having finally listened to “Gone Sour, Doomed” and watched the video that accompanied it when it debuted in February, I’m even more befuddled about why it took me so long to do that. I can’t pretend to hold all the songs of The Monolith Deathcult in my head, despite how memorable many of them are, but I will still say that this new one is among the most exhilarating they’ve ever concocted. And the video is HIGHLY entertaining, and proof that the band’s renowned sense of humor is still alive and well. Continue reading »

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