SHADES OF BLACK: CODE, DOLDRUM, ESOCTRILIHUM, NIHTSÎN, GNOSIS, VITRAIL

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, SHADES OF BLACK  6 Responses »
Mar 282021
 

 

We had a rare Sunday premiere earlier today, but fret not, Shades of Black has not been forgotten.

I enjoyed figuring out how to arrange the music I picked for today. The music of the first three bands seemed to complement each other, so I started there — and then made a hair-pin turn in the road with the full album stream that follows them. And, given how chilling and unearthly that album sounds, I decided to follow it with a couple of tracks that will give your adrenaline levels a sharp kick in the ass.

CODE (UK)

As usual, I owe some of today’s picks to reliably tasteful friends. I would have eventually discovered this first one on my own, but listened to it a lot faster because of the enthusiastic message I received from Rennie (starkweather). He called this new song by Code “fantastic”, and possibly his “favorite song of theirs since the first album’s ‘Brass Dogs.'” Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: SLEEPWALKER, HANTERNOZ, KASSAD, ULVEHYRDE, THANATOMASS, BLACK CEREMONIAL KULT, STWORZ

 SHADES OF BLACK  2 Responses »
Mar 212021
 

 

I guess it’s usually true that I try to put a lot of variety into these Sunday columns, but today’s selections seem to be even more divergent than usual. As a result, I had a devil of a time figuring out how to arrange the tracks, and I don’t think I succeeded in creating any kind of rational flow, probably because all the songs resist that. However, I do think I succeeded in creating a whiplash effect at the end, so there’s that.

There’s only one full release to be found here. The rest are either singles or advance tracks from forthcoming records. Enjoy!

夢遊病者 (SLEEPWALKER) (Russia, Japan, U.S.)

I decided to begin with the most head-spinning track of everything you’ll find here. Although my head has been spun around before by the escapades of this multi-national avant-garde collective, they’ve really outdone themselves this time. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: SPHERE, SETH, EXAVERSUM, ZEIT, TRENCHES

 SHADES OF BLACK  2 Responses »
Mar 142021
 

 

I think of this week’s column as falling into two parts that I’ve arranged by design. The first part consists of three segments — advance tracks from three forthcoming album. Although I’d be foolish to claim they are completely similar, I think they do share certain ingredients and feelings that tie them together in ways that make for a very good mini-playlist. In the second part I’ve reviewed two albums (though one of them isn’t out yet) which I also think fit together. They are very different from the tracks in the first part.

SPHERE (France)

The first offering here is an 18-minute song named “Invocation” from the forthcoming second album (entitled π) by the French black metal band Sphere. It features a guest performance by Déhà. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (AND OTHER SHADES): THE STONE, COSCRADH, VALLENDUSK, THULCANDRA, SULPUR, FUOCO FATUO, CROSS VAULT, CTHONICA, EHNAHRE

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHADES OF BLACK  No Responses »
Mar 072021
 

 

I want to thank those of you who have left comments or sent messages expressing sympathy and support for my current day-job misery. I was also surprised, and admittedly a bit disappointed, that a lot of people checked in on yesterday’s post even though I didn’t have the time to write about any of the music — or even listen to it! So I thought, what the hell, let’s do that again.

This column is usually devoted to black metal, and so I’ve started that way but also diverted from it. But yesterday one of our supporters (rodney) left a comment with some recommendations, and I thought I would include some of those here at the end, because he included some enticing descriptions of the bands and their music. Some of that music would seem to fit SHADES OF BLACK and some might not, which is true of my own choices

I again haven’t listened to any of this. As was true yesterday, I’m gambling, but these all seem like good bets. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: MONTE PENUMBRA, YITH, KANONENFIEBER

 SHADES OF BLACK  7 Responses »
Feb 282021
 

 

I won’t repeat what I wrote yesterday (fucking day job… electrodynamic particle accelerator… last hurrah…). Suffice to say I don’t have much time for NCS at the moment, or for the next couple of weeks, so today’s SOB is briefer than usual. But still good, of course, like a delicious appetizer that a djinn materializes to drop off and then vanishes, leaving you to forage for the rest of the meal yourself.

MONTE PENUMBRA (Portugal/Iceland)

My oh my, how my eyes brightened last week when I saw that Monte Penumbra had returned. I confess I had forgotten to check for news about this project with the passage of time. After all, it has been roughly five years since their last release, a 2016 EP named The Black Realm Vigil, and even longer since their first album, Heirloom of Sullen Fall (2013). But the music isn’t easily forgotten, hence the gleam of brightness in my puffy bloodshot eyes. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: PALUS SOMNI, RITUALS OF THE DEAD HAND, CONSTANT NAUSEA, COLDCELL, HEGEROTH, MORK, VIPÈRE

 SHADES OF BLACK  4 Responses »
Feb 212021
 

 

In exploring what I might choose for today’s column I wound up going down a weird rabbit hole. By chance, the first few tracks I picked put me in a chilling frame of mind, and in sorting through others I decided to just stay there, immersed in a mood of cold, frightening eeriness. However, I did decide to pick a couple of more carnal (for want of a better word) selections to finish off this compilation, to shake off those other moods like a wet dog shedding water.

There’s obviously a lot of music here, but maybe not as much as you might guess because until the very end these are all advance tracks rather than full releases. So don’t be daunted… dive all the way in….

PALUS SOMNI (UK/US)

I’m beginning with “Unholy Cosmic Quintessence“, the first advance song from the debut album of Palus Somni, a trio that combines (to quote the label) “the twisted dissonant riffs of Stroda (known for this work on U.K. based Industrial / Black Metal act Decoherence), the thundering vicious percussions of Eoghan (known for his work on U.S. Black Metal bands Akhlys and Aoratos) and the distant cold icy screams of Imber (from U.S. based record label Noxial)”. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: MARE COGNITUM, PAYSAGE D’HIVER, CAESTUS, WESENWILLE, LESATH, MINNERIKET

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  3 Responses »
Feb 142021
 

 

Someone (besides Andy Synn) must have noticed that yesterday I posted a round-up of new songs and videos that I named “Seen and Heard on Valentine’s Day“, when in fact yesterday was not Valentine’s Day. I conceived of various justifications for this, including the assertion that I live in the future. But the truth is that what I did was probably dictated by my subconscious mind: Sundays here are for Shades of Black, even a Valentine’s Day Sunday, and I sure as hell couldn’t call this “Valentine’s Day Shades of Black”.

Let’s face it, black metal is not about love, even when it’s the kind of more modern blackened metal that wears its heart on its sleeve. It’s more about bitterness, hate, and hopelessness. When it becomes celebratory, it’s usually envisioning the savage triumph of the Fallen Angel over the deluded sheep of humanity and the institutions that have herded them, or the death of the cosmos itself.

Well, those observations may not cover the entire spectrum of black metal, especially in the modern era, but you know what I mean. Generally speaking, black metal isn’t about hearts and flowers unless the hearts have been freshly ripped from chest cavities and the flowers bloom at night and are poisonous. So, I’m just going to continue pretending that yesterday was Valentine’s Day, and we’ll say nothing more about it today.

As usual, I’ve struggled to make the following selections because so much worthy new music surfaced over the last week. There was a lot of other news as well, including the announcement that the long-running Serbian band The Stone will have a new album named Kosturnice coming out in late March, and that Necros Christos have announced their permanent disbanding. Nevertheless I did my best with these choices, and of course you should feel free to use the Comment section to point out other new black metal that I should have paid attention to in print. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 2): MISOTHEIST, AKVAN

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK  2 Responses »
Feb 072021
 

 

I’ll be so bold as to say that lovers of black metal, or at least those whose tastes aren’t rigidly hemmed in by convention, are in the midst of a musical Renaissance. I don’t mean to say that every band and every variant are worth our time or our devotion — as in all art, there is wheat and there is chaff to be separated. But there are giant bushelfuls of wheat to fall into!

Sadly, out of the many noteworthy releases I discovered during the last week, the timing of which perhaps had something to do with Bandcamp Friday, I only have time to feature a couple, and I chose these two. Even with just these two, time prevents me from going into great depth about them

MISOTHEIST

I’ve been impatiently waiting for a new Misotheist album ever since coming across a preliminary version of a new song named “Benefactor of Wounds” in the spring of 2019. I had thought that Terratur Possessions would release the album that year, but the year passed, and so did 2020, and we continued to wait — though the debut of the album version of that same song last November did bring with it the news that the album would finally arrive this month. And so it has. In a word, it’s stunning. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 1): SPIRE, WODE, SNĚŤ, TOTALITARIAN, NACHTIG

 SHADES OF BLACK  5 Responses »
Feb 072021
 


Spire

 

These columns are always difficult to put together. There are just so many worthy candidates to choose from. But this weekend seemed even more difficult than usual. In an effort to call attention to as much new music as I could, I’ve made this a two-parter. To get things started, I chose advance tracks from four forthcoming records and sandwiched in a new video for a song we’ve praised before. Part 2 will be devoted to a few complete new releases.

SPIRE (Australia)

First up are a pair of stunning advance tracks from Temple of Khronos, the second album by Australia’s Spire. “Harbinger” is an immediate storm of reality-rending chaos, a conflagration of blasting drums, massed, maniacally swirling guitars, and a choir of vocalists who seem to be in the throes of a mind-scarring out-of-body experience. The intensity will suck the wind from your lungs, but the glimmering, otherworldly melodies, which become stricken with grief and despair when the momentum slows, and the ominous chanting, which adds an element of solemn and haunting grandeur, make the song even more compelling. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 2); MUKA, EKDIKĒSIS, ERIPHION, HELL-BORN

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK  No Responses »
Jan 312021
 

 

As promised in Part 1 of this column, Part 2 is devoted to a group of complete new albums that were just released during the last 10 days, most of them unusually unsettling but also fascinating. With apologies to the bands, and maybe to you if you usually bother to read rather than just listen, I’ve resorted to a time-saving strategy of just picking one track from each album to write about in detail, and then adding only the most cursory preview of everything else.

For the first two records I’m again indebted to Rennie (starkweather) for making me aware of them.

MUKA (Croatia)

Patologija Poniznosti is a new EP by this band from Zagreb that just came out today, so I obviously haven’t spent much time with it. But I’ve spent enough time to learn that Muka have become no more merciful than they were on their 2017 EP, Sveta Stoka, which I briefly reviewed here. Continue reading »

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