SHADES OF BLACK: MYSTAGOS, AMNUTSEBA, SCARIFICARE, NATAS

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Feb 102018
 

 

It will come as no surprise to anyone who has visited us more than once that I enjoy doing premieres of new music. Sometimes, however, I lose my head: For example, over the last two days we did eight of them. I believe in the worth of each one of those, but they shoved everything else out of the way, including this post, which I started writing last Wednesday and couldn’t finish.

Posting this on Saturday runs it right up against the usual spot for this SHADES OF BLACK series on Sunday, but so be it. I’ll still post another one of these installments tomorrow, and then try to figure out how to catch up on Monday with everything else I’ve neglected over the last two days.

MYSTAGOS

In December we premiered a song from a then-forthcoming EP named Pvrvsha by the Spanish black metal band Mystagos. That song alone (“Drowning In the Sea of Unconsciousness”) was enough to land the EP on my own “most anticipated” list for the early months of 2018. And on February 1, Pvrvsha was released by BlackSeed Productions. It’s available now through Bandcamp, and if you haven’t heard it, you really should give it your full attention. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: GRAVE UPHEAVAL, NAER MATARON, VEILED, FOXGLOVE, THECODONTION

 SHADES OF BLACK  2 Responses »
Feb 042018
 

 

I spent a lot of time yesterday listening to new black metal and black/death metal, trying to decide what to write about in this Sunday’s SHADES OF BLACK column. My list of what I wanted to recommend to you included music from 20 bands… and that’s not counting the dozens more from previous listening sessions over the last couple of weeks. As a result, I chose the following five tracks pretty impulsively, consoling myself with the thought that I could pick some more for a further installment of this series early in the coming week. I hope that works out.

As you’ll discover, I bent the rules a bit… some of these tracks lean more on the death metal side of darkness than the black metal side. But it’s all still very black, and all very good.

GRAVE UPHEAVAL

Roughly five years after their untitled debut album, the Australian band Grave Upheaval, whose members are not officially identified but who are rumored to include members of Impetuous Ritual, Portal, and Temple Nightside, have a new album headed our way. Also untitled, and with songs that are identified only by Roman numeral, it will be released by Nuclear War Now! Productions on April 15th. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 3): STORMBANE, VÄKI, VARATHRON, VURVARAT, WALDEINSAMKEIT, WYRMWOODS, BLACK REAPER

 Premieres, SHADES OF BLACK  4 Responses »
Jan 262018
 

 

This is the last installment of a three-part post I began on Wednesday, focusing on new and recently discovered metal in a blackened vein. I packed a lot of music into this tripartite post — including a pair of video premieres today — in part because I failed to get a SHADES OF BLACK column finished in time to post in its usual place last Sunday, but also because I won’t get one done for this coming Sunday either. The weekend is going to be an unusually busy one for me, and if I can manage to get anything done at all for NCS, it will be a continuation of our Most Infectious Song list… because time is rapidly running out on that.

When I started this post two days ago I had a list that I alphabetized by band name before dividing it into thirds. I did say that I might discover something else to add that would screw up the alphabetic ordering, and so I have.

STORMBANE

Stormbane (from Melbourne, Australia) have explained that they recorded their debut album Eldritch Devotion in 2014 but only released it on January 1 of this year “due to explosive bowel movements and disagreements”. It also appears to be a posthumous release — Metal Archives now classifies the band as “Split-up”. Too bad. But at least the band decided to discharge this explosive movement before they themselves exploded. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 2): HUMAN SERPENT, KAVYK, THE KRYPTIK, LIVING ALTAR, NIPHREDIL

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  7 Responses »
Jan 252018
 

 

Yesterday I posted the first Part of this three-part collection of new or recently discovered black metal. If the rest of my life will cooperate, I should be able to post Part Three tomorrow. As previously explained, I arranged all the music in alphabetical order by band name and then divided the list into thirds. And so tomorrow’s music comes from bands whose names follow the letter N — unless I find something else I want to tack on, or forget how to alphabet.

HUMAN SERPENT

My comrade DGR pointed me to For I, the Misanthropist, the third album by the Greek band Human Serpent. I don’t think we’ve written about Human Serpent before, although in preparing to write this post I saw that the band’s last release (just a few months ago) was a 20-minute collaboration with Isolert, who I have tried to expose to our readers on a couple of previous occasions. That’s a release I need to listen to (and you can listen to it here as well). Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 1): ACHERONTAS, ALGHAZANTH, BASALTE, CLARET ASH, COVERED IN FLIES, DRUDKH, GOAT SEMEN

 SHADES OF BLACK  6 Responses »
Jan 242018
 

 

Because of an event-filled out-of-town trip last weekend I wasn’t able to prepare a SHADES OF BLACK column for Sunday, or anything for Saturday. Fortunately, DGR stepped in with a 3-part SEEN AND HEARD round-up that launched on Saturday and continued through Monday. Now I’m going to do something similar, with this column’s usual focus on black metal. I’ve amassed a substantial collection of new music and a few news items that also interested me. I’ve organized them in alphabetical order and divided the list into three parts, with the goal of posting Parts 2 and 3 tomorrow and Friday.

Of course, in the meantime the odds are that I’ll find something else I’d like to include, which may necessitate screwing up the alphabetized ordering.

ACHERONTAS

I’m beginning Part 1 of this collection with the first of a trio of enticing news items I’ve included here. As announced today by Agonia Records, the Greek occult black metal band Acherontas (whose gear is pictured above) will be releasing a seventh studio album this spring. Yes, it’s true that Acherontas released an album only last year — Amarta अमर्त (Formulas of Reptilian Unification Part II) — but that’s no reason to be any less excited to receive a new one.

As for why this new one is appearing so quickly on the heels of the last one, the press release we received included this statement by the band: Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: VERHEERER, AFVALLIGE, YHDARL, MALADIE,KRUKH, ABIGOR

 SHADES OF BLACK  12 Responses »
Jan 072018
 

 

I mentioned in yesterday’s last post, which immediately precedes this one, that I have an extraordinarily long list of intriguing new music that came out (or that I discovered) over just the last week. And a great deal of that is music from the black realms… too much to shoehorn into a single SHADES OF BLACK post.

So, even though this is a long post, with a lot of music for you to explore, it doesn’t exhaust everything I would like to recommend. Sadly, I’ll have to shoehorn everything else into an OVERFLOWING STREAMS post tomorrow, in which I’ll deprive myself of the pleasure of commenting on the music and instead simply furnish the streams, with release details.

VERHEERER

The first song in this collection is also the one I heard most recently, thanks to a link yesterday from my astute acquaintance Miloš. But it demanded to be placed here, because it shot a lightning bolt straight through me on the first listen. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 2): ENTHEOGEN, JASSA, DAEVA, UR, NIGHTGRAVE, INFERNOTION

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK  3 Responses »
Jan 022018
 

 

This is the second part of a post I began here on the last day of the old year, delayed by one day so that I could recover from a cataclysmic hangover produced by unforeseen New Year’s Eve revels; the old year died, and then I felt as if I had, too.

I’ve collected streams of six albums here, all of them released in December or November, accompanied by nothing that would justify the term “review”, only a few inadequate words of description and praise that I hope will induce you to explore the music. This won’t be the last of my efforts to catch up with music released last year, though inevitably we’ll start paying increasing amounts of attention to the march of metal in 2018.

ENTHEOGEN

Andy Synn already included this record on his listing of 2017’s “Great Albums”, and it recently appeared on Brendan Sloan’s list (here) as an Honorable Mention — but only because he thought it would be greedy to put more than one Alex Poole project in his Top 17 list (the other being Chaos Moon). Yet despite this attention, both at NCS and elsewhere, I wanted to give my own nudge to those who haven’t yet heard Without Veil, Nor Self. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 1): VARNAK, KARMACIPHER, PANPHAGE, KHORAJA, ANTIGONE’S FATE

 SHADES OF BLACK  5 Responses »
Dec 312017
 

 

As you can see, I have ambitions… ambitions for a SHADES OF BLACK post that carries over, one that’s both the last SHADES OF BLACK of the old year and the first of the new year. Of course, those ambitions depend on my being able to write Part 2 tomorrow and your ability to read it. Since my New Year’s Eve will probably consist of a quiet evening at home with Ms. Islander and a bottle of champagne, I’ll probably be able to give a decent account of myself come the dawn. I wish I could be more hopeful about you. If you wake up in a pool of your own urine with the taste of vomit in your mouth, please don’t send photos.

I’ve divided my selections this week as follows: In Part 1 I’ve included a few recent EPs and advance tracks from forthcoming albums.  In Part 2 I’ve collected some complete 2017 albums that I’d like to call attention to, not all of which are brand new.

JANUARY 1 UPDATE:  That prediction about New Year’s Eve being a placid, well-behaved time for yours truly turned out to be load of horseshit. The extent of my suffering today is of epic proportions. Part 2 will be delayed until January 2.

VARNAK

I’m indebted to my friend Miloš for recommending this first two-song EP. Entitled Вопль о Земле, it was released via Bandcamp by the Russian black metal band Varnak on December 28th (the cover art is at the top of this post). I processed the Russian lyrics through Google Translate, and although the results are a bit garbled, I found them fascinating — just as I did the music. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: EUCLIDEAN, BALMOG, BHLEG, SAMMATH, BLACK KNIFE

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHADES OF BLACK  12 Responses »
Dec 272017
 

 

I’m three days late with this week’s edition of SHADES OF BLACK, and still woefully behind in sharing new music in a blackened vein that I’ve discovered over the last month. I’m bound and determined to do at least one more of these features before 2017 is interred in a moldy grave, as long as I’m sufficiently unbound by other distractions.

This particular collection includes one complete new album, advance tracks from two more, some new live videos, and a new single.

EUCLIDEAN

To begin this selection of music, I want to strongly recommend Quod Erat Faciendum, the debut album of the Swiss band Euclidean, which was released on December 21 and came strongly recommended to me by starkweather and by Miloš. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: ABIGOR, OBSCURA AMENTIA, DEFECRATOR, TAPHOS NOMOS, CIEŃ, VÄKI, DIPLEGIA

 SHADES OF BLACK  4 Responses »
Nov 272017
 

 

The year is supposed to be barreling toward the end, with a deep breath and a gasping look backward, but it’s obvious that the life pulse of metal takes no breaks. If you spend too much time reflecting on the last 11 months, you will inevitably miss a lot in the 5 weeks yet to come. I’m going to have to take that break, but not quite yet.

I intended to post this particular collection yesterday in its usual Sunday spot, but couldn’t finish it before departing for some Thanksgiving weekend festivities with friends. Since then it has grown a bit, but could have become much longer.

ABIGOR

Yesterday the brilliant Austrian black metal band Abigor announced that their new album, Höllenzwang – Chronicles of Perdition, has been sent off to the pressing plant. They made clear that the release will not be preceded by “any fancy youtube video, tons of merch or other promotion campaigns”. But the band did provide a few insights into the music, as well as a stream of song excerpts, which I’ve included below. Continue reading »

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