SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: BLACK CURSE, GREAT FALLS, DROWNSHIP, POLEMICIST, THE WEIR, LYSERGIC

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Oct 052024
 


Black Curse – photo by Brendan Macleod

A few times a year my spouse leaves town without me, jetting away to have fun with one of her sisters or a friend. I could join if I wanted to, but have figured out that giving her some breaks from me is a good idea. I give her some other breaks when I go off to metal fests without her (she’d rather be punched in the kidneys than go to a metal show).

These times when I’m home alone are clouds with silver linings. It doesn’t take long before I start really missing her. The sudden and prolonged silence around the house starts weighing on me. One of the silver linings is that I fill up the silence with music whenever I want to (my kind of music), and fill it up some more by spilling out thoughts about what I’m hearing.

You could guess that my spouse has been gone on one of those trips since early last week, given that I’ve now managed to pull together three roundups of new music and videos in the space of the last four days. She’ll be back home this afternoon, so I’ll most likely be back to doing these once a week on Saturdays until she plans another jaunt. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: BEHEMOTH, PESTILENT HEX, DEIVOS, SOUL DEVOURMENT, CKRAFT, SOULSKINNER, TALES OF BLOOD, THORNLORD

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Oct 042024
 

“BC Friday. Go spend money.” That’s what a fellow metal writer posted early this morning in a chat group I’m part of, populated by a bunch of other metal writers from print and on-line spaces. From my observation, they do that every Bandcamp Friday, sharing in the group what they’ve bought, proving they did it and suggesting spendy ideas to the others, even though all of them get free promos of most records they’re interested in.

Well, I’m not going to exhort all of you to go spend money on Bandcamp today. Ends must be made to meet, and for some, the ends don’t include paying for music you can listen to for free. But for those who do like to take advantage of these Fridays and shove a few extra coins across the table to needy metal bands and labels (which is about 95% of them), I’ve got a few more ideas for you — in addition to the gazillion other ideas we’ve offered up on every one of the 28 days since the last Bandcamp Friday. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ORISKA — “BISMUTH”

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Oct 042024
 

(Written by Islander)

The world as we know it is a bleak place, our inner worlds too often beset by turmoil and disappointment, and the outer world too savaged by humanity’s abundant, never-ending flaws. To be sure, we have glimpses of beauty and hope, but much of the time it’s a struggle to see them through the new and continuing ruins each day brings, inside and out.

Some metal bands succeed in creating diversions from the darkness, others seem to embrace it with a kind of nihilistic joy, and still others ruefully capture the grimness of what they see and feel in the most honest and powerful way they can, creating a staggering and shattering catharsis for others and for themselves as well. Oriska is that last kind of band.

This collective is headquartered in Fargo, North Dakota, but with members dispersed across California, Montana, North Dakota, and Minnesota. Their lineup features former members of Battlefields (Init Records, Translation Loss), Dispensing of False Halos, and Sleeping in Gethsemane (Init Records).

Oriska‘s self-titled debut album is now set for release on November 15th by Mind Over Matter Records and Init Records. “Blackened post-metal” is a shorthand description of the album’s music, but like many succinct genre terms it leaves a lot to the imagination. Better to see what that really means in the context of a song, and today we have one for you. Entitled “Bismuth“, it’s the album’s centerpiece and a formidable basis for the thoughts we tried to express above. Continue reading »

FIENDS OF EASTERN THEATERS — PART 2 (SHORTER FORMS)

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Oct 042024
 

(Following up on yesterday’s Part 1, today our Vietnam-based contributor Vizzah Harri brings us Part 2 of an article focused on Asian bands, narrating the effect of four EPs released this year.)

Having succeeded in subverting the norms with not-so-subtle subterfuge in an article containing very little metal in recent weeks – a tactic learned from Waylander of David Gemmell’s fantasy was that of hiding in plain sight — here we have four offerings that are connected to Part 1 geographically, but also aesthetically, albeit genre-wise we’re dealing with offerings of a more mongrelized persuasion. Anything suffixed with ‘core’ is a curse word in some circles, I prefer to spread the mycelium- and spongiform-afflicted ear holes of mine in myriad directions. Continue reading »

FIENDS OF EASTERN THEATERS – PART 1 (OBSCURIAL / FECUNDATION)

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Oct 032024
 

(Our Vietnam-resident writer Vizzah Harri has prepared a two-part sequence of reviews focused on albums released this year by Asian bands, and this is Part 1.)

A defenestration, crashing through a hearse straight into the coffin. Curtains augured in, joining the choir invisible. A sewer-slide into the glue factory. A first-class ticket out of corporeality to meet sleep’s cousin. Off the hooks and un-alived, a veritable shuffle off this mortal coil via toaster bath. And if that overbearing slew of gammon-appendaged analogies didn’t make it clear, we’re here for death served with a touch of supremacy. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: DYING HYDRA — “GRASPING STONE”

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Oct 032024
 

The Danish trio Dying Hydra named their forthcoming second album Strange and Beautiful Things — tangible proof that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, because the band’s rendering of atmospheric sludge metal on the record is capable of reaching harrowing depths of ugliness and devastating heaviness. You’ll discover what we mean when you see and hear the video we’re premiering today for an album track named “Grasping Stone“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: EVERTO SIGNUM — “COLOSSUS”

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Oct 032024
 

(written by Islander)

On November 1st the Monumental Rex label will release the second album by the Portuguese black metal band Everto Signum. Entitled Beastiary, it has an unusually interesting concept behind it, described as follows:

“The band stays true to their elemental background by writing an immersive story that guides the listener through a chain reaction of natural disasters. These calamities are beastialized – manifested as wild uncontrollable beasts exhibiting intrinsic animalistic shapes, traits and behaviours.

“The plot is comprised of seven chapters, each consisting of a contextual introduction that describes the scenery and sets the mood for the destruction to come, and an interpretation of the actual cataclysm. Written in English, the expressively poetic lyrical narrative portrays a journey from an ice-covered mountain top through a valley, down to the depths of a meromictic lake and finally into a perennial forest to witness the dreadful wrath of ancient forces.” Continue reading »

SINISTRO – VERTICE

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Oct 032024
 

(Andy Synn celebrates the return of Portuguese Post-Doom prodigies Sinistro)

As a reviewer I happen to think that context is pretty important.

I don’t just mean the usual types of context you might expect – references to the band’s background and influences, considerations about how an album stack’s up to the group’s previous work, etc – but the context of how your review is going to sit in the wider world.

Questions like “is this review coming out at a good time?” or “who else out there has already written about this?” are ones I think are important to ask, especially since I only have a limited amount of time to dedicate to writing here (I do have a life outside the site, you know).

Case in point, knowing I only had time for one more review this week I had to decide whether to write about Blood Incantation‘s new album or the new record from Sinistro, both of which are set for release this Friday.

But considering that practically everyone is going to be writing about Absolute Elsewhere this week (and I may still pen some thoughts about it myself at some point) I thought it more prudent to dedicate my efforts to reviewing Vértice instead, since my words are likely to have more impact on the latter’s success.

Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (HEADSPIN EDITION): MITOCHONDRION, AVHATH & KUNTARI, RINTRAH, THE HOLY FLESH, HIGH INQUISITOR WOE, DUKH DÄKOMPOSITA

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Oct 022024
 


Mitochondrion

(written by Islander)

With my wife out of town visiting one of her sisters and me having gotten a head-start on the premieres I’d committed to write for today, I found myself with a rare chunk of time to go musically exploring yesterday, and to prepare this rare mid-week roundup.

Entirely by coincidence, most of what I listened to was head-spinning in different ways (as you can tell by the post title). I think it’s fair to call all of the following songs unconventional, and maybe even experimental in some respects, including the ones that feature singing (and yes, some of these are “exceptions to the rule” around here).

But lest you think I’m about to load you up with many melodious things, let’s incinerate that assumption immediately. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): BILE CASTER — “WRITHING BETWEEN BIRTH AND DEATH”

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Oct 022024
 

(written by Islander)

“Nasty, miserable, no-nonsense sludge played at maximum volume with a focus on what is shit in life.” That’s the elevator pitch that Cursed Monk Records throws for Writhing Between Birth And Death, the debut EP from the UK band Bile Caster, and it hits the mark.

This Leicester-based trio, who might draw comparisons to the likes of Primitive Man and Meth Drinker, specialize in ugly, angry, primitive music that slugs hard enough to rupture spleens and is bleak enough that it might leave damaged souls looking for a permanent way out.

The new EP also has the capacity to leave anyone who survives it feeling dazed. It’s too ruthless to be truly entrancing, but the shock-and-awe effect may be enough to leave people feeling incapacitated, wondering what the hell they’re going to do while waiting for their reptile brains to yield back control of the higher faculties. Continue reading »

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