SHADES OF BLACK: KAMPFAR, GRAVEBORNE, NECROSADIST, WILDERNESSKING, LVCIFYRE, VAKSLEN, KALL

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHADES OF BLACK  6 Responses »
Jan 132014
 

Since the weekend began I caught up with a flood of hair-raising new songs and found so many worth recommending that I’ve collected them in two posts, this one being the first. I probably should have divided them into 4 or 5 posts, but since the unofficial motto of this site seems to be “long-winded”, why bother? New music from seven bands is gathered here. Shades and phases of black metal diversity… dig in!

KAMPFAR

This Norwegian band has been an NCS favorite for years. As previously reported, their new album Djevelmakt is due for release on January 21 via Indie Recordings. We previously featured (here) the first advance track from the album — “Mylder” — and now we have a second one, by the name of “Swarm Norvegicus”.

It begins with strings and piano and moves into a slow, massive, glorious, stomping behemoth of a song that builds in intensity. Both malignant and memorably melodic, it’s another very promising signpost on the road to one of our most highly anticipated 2014 albums. Listen next… Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: HAIL SPIRIT NOIR, CULTED, TRENCHROT, THRALL

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHADES OF BLACK  12 Responses »
Dec 282013
 

Between the time I’ve spent with family and friends over the holidays and pushing out the biggest year-end LISTMANIA series our site has ever published, I’ve been constricted in my ability to listen to new songs and forthcoming releases. But I keep lists. I keep lists like a hoarder of names. Never mind that actually making it through the lists is a frail hope, given that they keep growing, and growing, and growing…

But yesterday, I made a small dent in them and came away with four songs I’m really high on. Two of them are new tracks by bands whose past work I’ve admired, and two of them come from bands who I’d never heard before. Musically, the four songs have very little in common, other than the fact that they are all winners — and they all have darkness in their souls.

HAIL SPIRIT NOIR

Hail Spirit Noir’s first album, Pneuma (reviewed here), was unlike anything else I heard in 2012. It was exceedingly strange and yet brilliant, a splicing together of black metal, 60′s flower-power pop psychedelics, 70′s prog rock, 80′s New Wave dance beats, melodic doom, and even cool jazz. Each song was distinctively different from, though related to, the others, like cousins on a gnarled family tree. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (A HALLOWEEN EDITION): BLACK ALTAR, NECROPHAGIA, OLD SKIN, THE CHASM, GAPED, AND SARTEGOS

 Free Shit, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHADES OF BLACK  5 Responses »
Oct 312013
 

We’ve already delivered quite a flood of posts today, at least measured by our modest standards, but since tonight is the most metal holiday of the year, I couldn’t end our posting day without a round-up of newly discovered music suitable to the occasion. This is a big bag of special treats for your ears, the musical equivalent of those apples embedded with razor blades and worms that I like to keep around in case any neighborhood brats come calling. Just think of it as a big playlist of putridity, and feel to skip my words, as long as you don’t mind the thought of me weeping.

BLACK ALTAR

Black Altar are a black metal band from Olsztyn, Poland, with two albums and assorted shorter releases to their credit since 1997. Their latest offering is a five-song EP named Suicidal Salvation. I had never heard Black Altar’s music before, and all I knew about this EP was that it includes songs that were intended for a split with Shining that apparently didn’t come to pass.

I found two streaming examples of the EP’s music — a full track named “The Sentence” and a teaser reel of excerpts from all the songs. I’ve embedded both of them below. But I’m so taken with the band’s music that I also found two of the four tracks that they contributed to a 3-way split (Emissaries of the Darkened Call — Three Nails In the Coffin of Humanity) with Thornspawn (Texas) and Varathron (Greece) that came out at the end of 2012. Those songs are “I’m Demon” and “Nighthunter”. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: SUM OF R, CHAOS MOON, GRUE, AND WITCHRIST

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHADES OF BLACK  2 Responses »
Oct 262013
 

I’ve heard a lot of new music in the last couple of days, mostly isolated songs and videos from fairly deep underground. From those I compiled this mix, which I thought deserved that “Shades of Black” preface that I’ve used before. Despite the fact that the first and last offerings aren’t black metal, they’re still black as a moonless night.

SUM OF R

Sum of R is a Swiss band that since 2012 has consisted of Reto Mäder (bass, drums, percussion, synthesizer, piano, effects) and Julia Wolf (guitar, effects). Their most recent work is an album entitled Ride Out the Waves, which was released in late 2012 by Storm As He Walks. It’s also now available on Bandcamp. The last song on the album is “Alarming”, and in 2012 it was released in advance of the album as a music video. The video is a montage of film clips edited and assembled by Francesca Marongiu, an Italian multi-instrumentalist and visual artist, in her alter ego as Agartthacave.

This was my first exposure to Sum of R (thanks to our supporter KevinP’s posting of a link to the video on FB today), and the combined audio and visual synthesis floored me. The music is a glacial floe of funereal doom and drone, shrouded in caustic distortion and punctuated by cataclysmic percussive downbeats and shrill electronic noises. Withering harsh shrieks and the sound of a siren ratchet the tension until everything falls apart beneath the final mallet blows. It’s completely crushing. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: INFERNO, SLEGEST, DARKMOON WARRIOR, AND PATRONS OF THE ROTTING GATE

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHADES OF BLACK  9 Responses »
Sep 252013
 

In this post I’ve collected three new songs from three new albums that caught my ears over the last 24 hours, as well as a full-album stream of another recent release. As you might have guessed from the title of the post, all of the music flies the black metal flag, but the styles are nevertheless significantly different from each other. The bands are Inferno (Czech Republic), Slegest (Norway), Darkmoon Warrior (Germany), and Patrons of the Rotting Gate (Ireland). I might add that all four albums are adorned by some very eye-catching artwork.

INFERNO

Inferno’s current album, their sixth, is entitled Omniabsence Filled By His Greatness and was released on September 24 by Agonia Records. The fantastic cover art that you see above was creatd by Fenomeno Design (Blut Aus Nord, Glorior Belli, Perdition). Yesterday Agonia uploaded one of the new tracks to Soundcloud.

“The Funeral of Existence” rings with chiming guitars and thrums with heavy weight in the low end. It rocks and rolls, its ephemeral melody will reverberate through your skull, and when the blasting and growling begins it will be time to run for cover before the roof comes down. Damned fine piece of progressive black metal, and really well-produced. This may well be a damned fine album, too — I now intend to find out. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: CULT OF ERINYES, LORN, AND NOSFERATU

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHADES OF BLACK  4 Responses »
Sep 212013
 

When I staggered to bed last night I had a few ideas percolating about what I would post today. When I staggered out of bed this morning and started wandering through the interhole those ideas went out the window, and instead what you’re about to hear took their place. By chance I listened to three new songs in a row that really grabbed me. By chance, they’re all shades and phases of black metal, with interesting twists. I wasn’t familiar with any of the bands before listening to these new tracks, and with luck like this I should probably buy a lottery ticket today.

CULT OF ERINYES

This three-person Belgian band have recorded their second album, Blessed Extinction, which will be released in digipak format on October 21, 2013, by the Italian label Code666 Records. They’ve just begun streaming an advance track named “自爆 (Jibaku)”, which I discovered thanks to a Facebook post by Nico at Kaotoxin Records, who’s an acquaintance of mine and a friend of the band.

If the song consisted of nothing but the hurricane of cutting guitars, thundering percussion, and acid vocals with which it begins, I’d be happy enough, because that first phase of the song shoots a megawatt charge straight to the brainstem. But the song holds in store much more than that. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: DIABOLICAL, VALKYRJA, SARKOM, THE BODY

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHADES OF BLACK  7 Responses »
Sep 172013
 

Continuing a round-up that I began yesterday, here are new songs, new videos, and an enticing piece of news that caught my eyes and ears since the last weekend began. They share a certain . . . darkness . . . at their core.

DIABOLICAL

I’ve been waiting with bated breath for Diabolical’s new album Neogenesis since hearing a collection of pre-production excerpts released during the summer of 2012 (featured here). I say that without knowing precisely what bated breath means, but I presume it smells better than baited breath. In any event, Neogenesis is finally on the verge of release (the official date is September 27), and to build anticipation Diabolical have released a music video for a track named “Metamorphosis”.

The song is a wave front of blasting, blackened, death metal. In its most powerfully storming moments, it reminds me of those Polish masters Behemoth and Hate. It has an infernally imperial aura, and the production underscores its crushing might. The video is also very well done, though be aware that it includes nudity (not presented salaciously, I might add). I’m really looking forward to hearing all of Neogenesis. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: NECROPHOBIC, DEVOURER, HAMFERÐ, AND CARPE NOCTEM

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHADES OF BLACK  15 Responses »
Sep 032013
 

This is a round-up of new songs and videos that debuted over the last 24 hours. There is a unifying theme to what I’ve selected: Although the styles of metal range from rampaging black metal to the sublime weight of doom, darkness pervades the sounds.

NECROPHOBIC

Only yesterday we posted Part 1 of Andy Synn’s review of the recently completed SUMMER BREEZE festival in Germany. It included words of praise for the live performance by Sweden’s Necrophobic. And today brought us the North American premiere of the first single from this influential band’s new album Womb of Lilithu, their seventh studio album and the first one in four years.

The new track is “Splendour Nigri Solis” and it’s now streaming at Spotify (here), though because it debuted in Europe earlier, it has also made its way to YouTube. It’s a thumping, thrashing, swirling whirlwind of black metal vehemence (with imperious, cleanly-sung, off-tempo sections that are as cool as the speedy parts). Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: KOZELJNIK, BLACK TABLE, AND VON

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHADES OF BLACK  4 Responses »
Feb 082013
 

My head is spinning with new music that I want to spread around and introduce to new listeners. I’m afraid I’ll never have time enough to write about all of it. Correction: I know there’ll never be enough time. I’ll do what I can, but there will necessarily be a degree of randomness in the selections. Still, I look for themes around which to organize the picks.

The theme of this post is the rich diversity of black metal. If you’re one of those people who did an eye roll at reading the last sentence, thinking that it all sounds alike, I can only say that you haven’t listened enough. Try out these three offerings as proof. They consist of new music from Kozeljnik (Serbia), Black Table (NY/NJ), and Von (California).

KOZELJNIK

This band is composed of two members: Kozeljnik, who is the vocalist, guitarist, and bass player, and L.G., the drummer. Both of them are also members of a long-running excellent Serbian band named The Stone, which I featured in a MISCELLANY post back in March 2011. Kozeljnik has released an EP and two albums (Sigil Rust and Deeper the Fall), and they’re on the verge of releasing a second EP named Null: The Acheron of Multiform Negation.

One song from the new EP is now streaming and available for download on Bandcamp (here) — “Time, Neglected in the Wound of a Martyr”. The last album, Deeper the Fall, is also available on Bandcamp (here). Last night I listened to the new song as well as the first track from Deeper the Fall, “Thetruthisdeath”. Both are them are striking, and strikingly different from the norm. Continue reading »

MISCELLANY NO. 31: SHADES OF BLACK (PROGENIE TERRESTRE PURA, AOSOTH, FALLOCH, AND TOWERING FILTH)

 MISCELLANY, SHADES OF BLACK  5 Responses »
Aug 022011
 

More than six weeks have passed since my last MISCELLANY post, and I’ve been kicking myself black-and-blue for not writing them more regularly. In case you’ve forgotten, I use this MISCELLANY series as a vehicle for checking out bands whose music I’ve not heard before. We keep a list of MISCELLANY candidates, based on messages we get from bands or things we’ve read, and then when I’ve got the time, I pick a few bands from the list, listen to one or two songs, not knowing whether I’ll like the music or not, and then write about what I’ve heard. I also stream for you the same tracks so you can decide for yourselves whether it’s your kind of thing.

This installment of MISCELLANY diverges from the usual form in a couple of respects.  First, the selection process wasn’t quite as random as usual — this time, I decided to pick bands who I knew were all within the genre of black metal. Second, I already knew and liked the previous releases from one of the bands I picked — Aosoth — though I hadn’t yet heard anything from their newest release, so that’s a bit of a cheat on the usual rules.

So, with that preamble, here we go. The music I sampled for this post came my way from Progenie Terrestre Pura (Italy), Aosoth (France), Falloch (Scotland), and Towering Filth (U.S.). It’s all black metal, but the styles of music turn out to be quite different. Black may be the absence of light, but these bands prove (and prove well) that there are shades of black after all. Continue reading »

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