(Austin Weber returns to NCS with recommendations of new underground releases. There are four bands covered in this post and tomorrow there will be three more.)

Whenever I do get around to writing various articles or reviews, I typically find myself instantly sidetracked and sucked into more new music that inevitably deserves to be written about as well. Which leads to more articles like this, and while it’s not clear to me if anyone cares, I will keep churning them out anyways! The bands that follow below span an eclectic range of styles, so I hope you the reader will find something you enjoy in the mix.

ORGONE

Pittsburgh extreme death metal act Orgone came to fruition at the right time in tech-death’s growth during the mid 2000s. During that period there seemed to be a bit more experimentation, versus the largely codified style and sound of what we expect when we hear that term now. Orgone released a stupefying near-impenetrable debut called The Goliath in 2007 and then disappeared. Now they’ve returned with The Joyless Parson, a further test in pushing the boundaries of death metal.

It’s a uniquely experimental effort that thrives on lengthy, lumbering builds and abruptly vacillating tempo shifts. In fact, The Joyless Parson spends more time at a menacing, pained crawl than it does in roaring, fast-paced tempo territory. Some may have heard of the band through Patron Of The Rotting Gate’s cover of “Caress Of Vines”, before this album came out. But that’s a long story related to the album being released on the internet in 2011 in pre-production form, and not subsequently being mixed and mastered until last year, leading to its current new official release status. Continue reading »