EXOTICS: TAMERLAN, NISHAIAR, NASHMEH

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Feb 172019
 

 

I still plan to post the usual Sunday Shades of Black column later today (though at this moment I haven’t finished it), but I thought I’d begin the day by sharing some of the music I investigated in the course of figuring out what I’d put in that column. I listened to the following songs and albums at different points in time, but it eventually occurred to me that compiling them here would provide an… exotic… listening experience.

All of these songs draw upon musical traditions that pre-date metal by many centuries, if not millennia. That makes the interweaving of them with metal sound exotic, but of course that’s a relative term. It’s more accurate to say “exotic to Western ears”, i.e., my own, and probably yours.

TAMERLAN

Tamerlan is the alter ego of musician Timur Iskandarov, whose place of origin is listed on Facebook as Prokopyevsk, Russia (a place in southwestern Siberia sandwiched between Mongolia and Kazakhstan), but who has also spent time in Uzbekistan, Serbia, Turkey, and elsewhere. As Tamerlan, he has released four albums (with a fifth one on the way) since 2006, along with a handful of shorter releases. The forthcoming record, Infinigrammaton, will be jointly released by Casus Belli Musica and Steinklang Industries on March 10 (digitally) and March 15 (CD). Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: INTER ARMA, THEORIES, SEREN, CIRITH GORGOR, HECATE ENTHRONED, BLIND MONARCH, SINS OF THE DAMNED, PERIPHERY

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Feb 142019
 

 

Happy Valentine’s Day. Here’s a bouquet of black roses for you. Careful with the thorns.

I had originally planned to post this round-up yesterday but ran out of time, so most of the songs and videos I’ve selected have been out in the wild for a couple of days. But you still might have missed them, so I’m forging ahead anyway.

The number of items in this collection is also large enough that normally I would have divided it into a two-part post, but I was so pleased with the stylistic variety represented in what I’d chosen that I decided to keep it all together in one place. Just take a deep breath (or maybe hyperventilate), and try to get through all of it — I bet you’ll find at least one new song you’ll really enjoy.

INTER ARMA

In not much more than three months from now, NCS will present the third annual edition of Northwest Terror Fest in Seattle. We announced the full three-day line-up on New Year’s Day, but of course, as always seems to happen, since then we’ve had a few bands drop out due to circumstances beyond our own control. One of those was scheduled to headline a night at one of the two main stages, but we got lucky and were able to secure a great replacement — Virginia’s Inter Arma, who happen to have a new album coming our way this spring. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: IMPRECATION, NOISEM, CREMATORY STENCH, LYSITHEA, MARIANAS REST, OATH OF CRUELTY

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Feb 112019
 

 

I delivered a double dose of new music and video recommendations last Thursday, but of course (as expected) a ton more new stuff appeared since I made those selections. In fact, everything I’ve chosen for this post surfaced just since I finished that last round-up. I had planned to post this collection on Saturday, but it snowed at the NCS compound, the power went out, and that was the end of that plan. Just as well — now you can use this playlist to start the new week on a heavy note.

I’m beginning with a trio of vicious death metal attacks, moving to a pair of more melodically-minded, and much more entrancing and doom-influenced, songs, and then finishing up with a real ripper. We don’t want anyone locked into a steady place for too long; that’s how brain cells get moldy.

IMPRECATION

By chance, two of the new songs in this post are from albums slated for release by Dark Descent Records, and this is the first of those. This is also the first of two Texas bands in this playlist. The album is Damnatio Ad Bestias, the second full-length released by the venerable Texas band Imprecation since they rose from the dead in about 2009 after a long hiatus. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (PART 2): ROTTING CHRIST, VIRCOLAC, CROSSBOW SUICIDE, BAKUSHIN, SEBDOOM

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Feb 072019
 

 

As explained in Part 1 of today’s round-up, I feel particularly inundated by new metal this week, far too much for me to cover comprehensively (and I’ve still got a lot of catching-up to do with music that came out before this week). I’m not sure there’s much rhyme or reason to what I chose to write about in this two-part installment. The choices were pretty damned impulsive.

For example, I could have written about the new songs and videos by Allegaeon, Continuum, Kartikeya, Katechon, Latitudes, Nightrage, and Sectioned (to name just a few), but I haven’t — though you can click those hyperlinks and check them out anyway. Here’s what I am writing about:

ROTTING CHRIST

Yesterday the Russian site Satanath (home to Satanath Records) premiered another new song off the new album (The Heretics) by Rotting Christ, which will be released by Season of Mist on February 15th. The name of the song, “Vetry zlye (Ветры злые)“, explains the choice of Satanath for the premiere. But although the song title and some of the lyrics are in Russian, it’s not Sakis Tolis who “fights his way through a maze of Russian phonetics” in the chorus, but guest singer Irina Zybina (vocalist in the Russian folk metal band Грай [Grai]). Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (PART 1): MISERY INDEX, ADVENT SORROW, CROWHURST, SEER, SEAX

 Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Feb 072019
 

 

This week has been ridiculous. With the exception of the year-end holiday season, when releases slow down a bit, every week now brings a flood of new music from metal bands and labels, but this week seems to be turning into a typhoon. With most of Thursday (as I write this) and all of Friday still to come, it’s only going to get worse/better. So once again, I’m resorting to a two-part round-up.

But even with a two-part collection I’m still not going to be able to comprehensively cover the (rising) waterfront. I’ve still had to make some choices, and so in Part 2, in addition to the usual write-ups, I’m just going to link you to additional streams of music that I’m not writing about in more detail. I’m doing that then instead of now, because I haven’t yet figured out where to draw that line.

MISERY INDEX

Two days ago, via Loudwire, Misery Index released a lyric video for another new track off their forthcoming album Rituals of Power. As the band explain: “‘The Choir Invisible‘ is a euphemism for the dead, or those who have passed on. In the context of this song, it is an anthem of the dispossessed and the hopeless. Many across the world exist in an ‘in-between’ state that is often ignored and/or washed over because they lack the power and voice to plead their case as human beings. The song takes up this theme and tells it from the somber view of those who risk their lives, board ships and cross oceans in order to find a better life.” Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: HORNDAL, ZERBIRST, INTRCPTR, FOUL BODY AUTOPSY, CEREMONY OF SILENCE, AVHATH

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Feb 052019
 

 

As you can see, this is the second Part of today’s round-up of new music I decided to recommend, based on an orgy of listening I engaged in yesterday while snowbound. Half the bands here are ones I knew (favorably) through previous releases, and half were newcomers to my ears. As in Part 1, there’s a diverse array of heavy sounds represented here, though hardcore plays a role in many of them.

HORNDAL

Sweden’s Horndal are one of the new bands whose music I discovered yesterday. With a backbone of heavy hardcore and an anthemic dramatic quality, their debut album Remains was inspired as a way of memorializing and protesting the implosion of their hometown of Horndal, a small industrial center that was gutted during the 1970s by the closure of a steel mill that had been the community’s lifeblood. Though I knew nothing of the band before yesterday, the official video for a song off the new album named “Wasteland” produced an immediately powerful reaction. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (PART 1): GODS FORSAKEN, KĀLA, SAMHARA, TARGET, SIELUNVIHOLLINEN, ULTRA SILVAM

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  4 Responses »
Feb 052019
 

 

Yesterday I learned of the postponement of an album premiere I had expected to write for today. If I had a less obsessive personality, I would have used that unexpected free time to go for a walk through the uncommon snow that turned the forested area where I live into a wonderland (because most workplaces, including mine, were closed down yesterday — because a little snow works like a paralytic agent on the City of Seattle). Instead, I spun my way through a couple dozen new songs… while occasionally staring out the window at the brilliance of that uncommon snow.

As you can already tell, since this is Part 1 of something I worked up, I liked quite a lot of what I heard, and thought you might too. I’m confident there will be a second Part… but not sure about a third… it depends on whether the snow melts and the paralysis loosens.

GODS FORSAKEN

What a very nice coincidence. Almost exactly one year ago we were anointing a song from this Swedish band’s debut album (In A Pitch Black Grave) as one of 2017’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs, and a year and a day after that event they released the first single from their second album. And damned if it isn’t already a contender for the 2019 edition of that list. Continue reading »

QUICK HITS: INTEGRAL RIGOR, ANABASIS, AKANTHA

 Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Jan 302019
 

 

One consequence of agreeing to present so many premieres (four of them yesterday alone!) and persisting with my Infectious Song list (even though it’s already 40 tracks long) is that I have much less time to round up new songs and videos. As a consequence, my list of new things to listen to and write about has become so vast that it resembles a paper version of this scene from a beloved movie.

With more premieres to write for today and another installment of “Most Infectious” as well, I don’t really have time to catch up today, but I did want to quickly mention the music below before turning back to those other labors.

INTEGRAL RIGOR

Because of the conditions described above, I’ve barely scratched the surface of Alast, the just-released new album by the Iranian band Integral Rigor, but have had a very warm reaction to what’s gotten under my fingernails so far. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SUNDAY: THE MOTH GATHERER, LEPROUS, COLD COLOURS, ETHEREAL DARKNESS, HEAUME MORTAL

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Jan 272019
 

 

If you came here this Sunday expecting the usual SHADES OF BLACK column, I’m sorry to disappoint you. The post you’re about to read is one I intended to publish yesterday before turning to the next SOB column, but I didn’t get it finished in time before turning to certain long-planned weekend activities. Those same activities prevented me from giving much thought to SHADES OF BLACK yesterday, and will probably make it tough to get that column done today either. Only time will tell.

I checked out all the following new videos and songs on Friday, and then revisited them this morning. It was one of those listening sessions where the stars seemed to align. Though the genres represented here are different, the music flowed in such a good, atmospherically dark way, in part because (as I hear them) they all incorporate ingredients of doom, without any of them really being what most people would call doom metal.

THE MOTH GATHERER

To open this collection I chose “Motionless in Oceania“, the first “single” from the new album by the Swedish band The Moth Gatherers, whose line-uo has changed a bit since their last record. Esoteric Oppression is the group’s third album, and it will be released by Agonia Records on February 22nd. It’s so immensely powerful that I felt flattened and stenciled by the sounds, like a thin sheet of tin beneath an industrial-strength die stamp. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: SINMARA, KHNVM, MEGASCAVENGER, TRIUMVIR FOUL, GOATKRAFT

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Jan 242019
 

 

I’m not going to pretend that this selection of five new songs is well-rounded, or that it’s going to appeal to a broad range of tastes. To borrow a pungent phrase from my friend Andy’s Altarage review yesterday, some of it probably qualifies as war crimes under the Geneva Convention. The most deviant extremists among you will probably lap up all of it; others may pick and choose, or just run for the hills.

If you’re in the mood to get your neck wrecked and don’t care how filthy you have to get, or how mentally traumatized, you’ll probably be fine. Probably.

SINMARA

If there’s a pinnacle in this post, before the descent into increasingly horrifying, visceral, and viscera-strewn trauma, it’s this new song by Sinmara, who are certainly one of the brightest beacons in the rich star-field of Icelandic black metal. However, to be clear, this isn’t easy listening, even for those whose brains have been thoroughly marinated in the poisonous broth of metallic hostility. Continue reading »

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