SHADES OF BLACK: DER ROTE MILAN, NUSQUAMA, ONDFØDT, BLUE HUMMINGBIRD ON THE LEFT, OMEGAVORTEX

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Dec 182018
 

 

I wasn’t able to write a SHADES OF BLACK column for last Sunday due to feeling like hell. I felt somewhat better than hell yesterday, and decided to pull this together now rather than wait until next Sunday. I have more new music from the black realms that I’d like to recommend, and will try to fold them into a different kind of round-up later this week. What you’ll find below are songs from four albums slated for release early next year and a mid-2018 promo EP that I’ve just discovered.

DER ROTE MILAN

Der Rote Milan‘s 2016 debut album Aus der Asche was an intense blending of grim ferocity and melancholy beauty, a powerfully affecting sequence of songs that makes their new album also worth close attention. Entitled Moritat, it will be released by Unholy Conspiracy Deathwork on February 1st. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: STILLA, ASTROPHOBOS, SE LUSIFERIN KANNEL, NASHEIM, MUSMAHHU

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Dec 022018
 

 

Against my expectations I found time to do some further listening while on vacation, and to write this column. As in the case of yesterday’s round-up, I haven’t been able to cast the listening net as widely as usual, but nevertheless found some very appealing music to recommend, including a just-released new album, which is the first item in today’s collection.

STILLA

Preview: Synviljor is the new fourth album by the Swedish band Stilla, which was released by Nordvis Produktion on November 30th. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: CHAPEL OF DISEASE, MISOTHEIST, HAUSTIÐ, CNTMPT, VANANIDR

 SHADES OF BLACK  3 Responses »
Nov 252018
 

 

For reasons that I’ll explain in a subsequent post today — reasons that will also probably diminish the volume of content at our site over the next two weeks — I’ve written this week’s edition of SHADES OF BLACK hurriedly. As is always true, I picked this week’s selections because I really like them and believe most of you will too, but today I don’t have as much time to explain why. The bands, however, convincingly speak for themselves through their music.

CHAPEL OF DISEASE

This German death metal band established themselves as a force to be reckoned with through their first two albums, Summoning Black Gods (2012) and The Mysterious Ways of Repetitive Art (2015). Their new album, …And As We Have Seen The Storm, We Have Embraced The Eye, will only elevate their already-respected status. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 2): SECTORIAL, ARÊTE, BLURR THROWER, NYCTOPHILIA

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Nov 182018
 

 

I can already tell that I’m not going to follow through on the plan I announced in Part I of today’s column. The plan was for a three-part post, but time is running out on me, and I’m going to have to stop here.

SECTORIAL

I’ve decided to introduce the first item in this collection, which is a full stream of the new album, VYR, by the Ukrainian group Sectorial, with a quote from the band: “Capricious and unpredictable streams of life, violent waves and the hypnotic blue of the the universe’s depths… an element that can withstand anything that will happen on the way… a bottomless stellar sky, reflected on a calm mirrored surface that in an instant turns into an incredible dance of the wind and drops, and spins in a gigantic powerful VYR.” Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 1): HWWAUOCH, AYYUR, READY TO FUCK

 SHADES OF BLACK  8 Responses »
Nov 182018
 

 

I’m not sure how many Parts I’ll finish for this Sunday’s column. I have three in mind, even though that may amount to overload for most readers.

HWWAUOCH

There may be some explanation out there in the interhole about how to pronounce this band’s name, but because I’m hurrying I haven’t looked. As I read it, it resembles the sound I make when clearing my throat upon awakening after a night of too many cigarettes and too much booze. Fortunately, the music on the band’s debut album sounds much better. In fact, it’s so good that it’s startling, and often stunning. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: KULTIST, VAGROND, NEMUS, MARID, YPOKOSMOS

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Nov 122018
 

 

Yesterday didn’t work out like I planned. Without going into the gory details, I was out all Saturday night — and I do mean all night. I didn’t go to sleep until about 7 a.m. on Sunday morning. By the time I woke up four hours later, it was too late to make a start on the usual Sunday SHADES OF BLACK column (on top of which I felt like hell).

I’d also planned a two-part post because I’d collected so much black or blackened metal that I wanted to recommend, but with so much else to do for this Monday, that’s not going to happen. This will have to do for now.

KULTIST

After releasing a debut EP in 2014 (Zweifel) the Munich band Kultist turned their attention to work on an album. As they explained on November 2nd, their efforts to find a label willing to back the album failed, leaving them “marrowless” and “cast down”, and thus they released it themselves as a last resort. I can understand their frustrations — because Aurora is very, very good. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: ETERNAL KHAN, REALM OF WOLVES, PSICOSFERA, THIRD STORM

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Nov 082018
 

 

This is a long-delayed episode of our usual Sunday column, one that I originally intended to finish writing and post two-and-a-half weeks ago. I won’t bore you with a re-hash of the reasons for the delay. Suffice to say that because it’s late, we’re now dealing with a couple of releases that have been been out for a little while rather than hot off the presses, and a couple more that are on the eve of release. No matter, they’re all still worth your time.

ETERNAL KHAN

Eternal Khan came to life in Providence, Rhode Island, about eight years ago. By 2012 they had released a two-song demo and then followed that in 2013 with an EP entitled A Primitive History, which appeared on several year-end lists posted on our site, including this one from our friend SurgicalBrute (another one of our contributors, KevinP, wrote about it for Metal Bandcamp here). Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 2): DET EVIGA LEENDET, TRACTATUS, KĀLA, HUMM, NEFASTU

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Nov 042018
 

 

I’m racing against the clock to finish the second part of today’s SHADES OF BLACK column, because I’m going to join about 65,000 other loud drunks watching a bunch of grown men engage in feats of athletic derring-do (and beating the crap out of each other) at Seattle’s Century Link Field. Fortunately, I have an hour more than I thought I would have to finish today’s two-parter because I forgot about that ridiculous thing I was supposed to do with my clock last night. Still, if this comes off as a bit hurried, now you know why.

DET EVIGA LEENDET

I ended Part 1 of today’s column by writing about a band I hadn’t heard of (Andeis) before listening to a track off their new album that was included on a great Fallen Empire sampler released in mid-October. And now I’m beginning Part 2 in a similar way.
Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 1): SVARTIDAUÐI, JADE, NIGHTGRAVE, DIM LORDS, ANDEIS

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Nov 042018
 

 

Two Sundays ago I had planned a giant edition of this column that included a trio of advance tracks and a trio of full albums, and then Kriegsmaschine‘s new surprise album diverted me. After writing about it I only had time to devote a second feature to the three advance tracks, and put off writing about those three full-lengths. I didn’t get to them last Sunday either, because a short vacation didn’t allow me the time I needed. And I’m not doing it this Sunday either.

This is the way things work in my defective brain. As you can see, this will be a two-part collection of new music (a very large one), but it’s all stuff I’ve discovered in the last two weeks. Those three albums that fell by the way-side two Sundays ago are still in the back of the room with their hands up, waiting to be noticed. I’ve promised myself I’m going to get to them, even if it means preparing a week-day edition of this thing. But for now, let’s get to the newer stuff.

SVARTIDAUÐI

As I hope you know by now, and certainly would know if you regularly hang around our putrid neighborhood, the Icelandic band Svartidauði will be releasing a new album named Revelations of the Red Sword via Ván Records on December 3rd, six years to the day after the advent of their debut album Flesh Cathedral. In mid-October the band provided a stream of a terrifying new song called “Burning Worlds of Excrement”, and now you can listen to a second one. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: EZKATON AND CANTIQUE LÉPREUX

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Oct 282018
 

 

I’m in the midst of a 4-day vacation in Las Vegas with my spouse and her sister and sister’s husband. Blogging has not been on the menu of activities. Getting more than about 4 hours of sleep a night hasn’t been on the menu either.

I did manage to extricate myself from one outing this morning, but spent an hour on the phone with internet support trying to get good enough wi-fi in the hotel room to stream music. Long story short: my time alone is now about to run out, and so this edition of SHADES OF BLACK is going to be shorter than usual.

EZKATON

In April of this year I came across a spellbinder of a song from the debut album of this Ukrainian black metal band, and quickly showered it with praise. Later, I discovered that the album as a whole (Plague for the Empires: Time) was also really powerful. And now Ezkaton will soon be releasing a new EP. Continue reading »

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