(Grant Skelton reviews the new album, released on Halloween, by the Mexican funeral doom band Abyssal.)
Way back in April, I reviewed a compilation album by the Mexican funeral room band Abyssal. Fernando Ruiz, the band’s vocalist, gave me the privilege of teasing Abyssal’s next release. At the time, the band provided the title Misanthrope, with a tentative release date of late summer. Although delayed until Halloween, Misanthrope has (thankfully) arrived. Continue reading »
You may have noticed that on Friday we announced the beginning of our annual LISTMANIA extravaganza. For those of you new to this orgy, our LISTMANIA blockbuster comes in four parts:
First, we re-print assorted lists of the year’s best albums, leeched from other big web sites and magazines, like the one on Friday from DECIBEL, which always seems to become the starting gun. Second, we will provide a post in which our readers’ can share their lists of the 2018 albums and shorter releases they enjoyed the most (we’ll be asking for those on November 29th, so get ready). Third, we post the year-end lists of our own staff and assorted guest writers. And fourth, I’ll roll out my list of the year’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs.
And that last list is the subject of this request for help.
In case you’ve become an NCS reader since this time last year, here’s what this Most Infectious Song list is all about: Continue reading »
As recounted by The Washington Post, “As night fell on April 4, 1968, newly declared presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy stepped in front of a microphone atop a flatbed truck in a poor, predominantly black neighborhood in Indianapolis. Looking out onto the crowd, Kennedy turned and quietly asked a city official, ‘Do they know about Martin Luther King?’”
King had been assassinated just a few hours earlier, as Kennedy had boarded a flight for Indianapolis. In response to Kennedy’s question the official told him, “We’ve left it up to you”.
What Kennedy then said to the waiting crowd over the next six minutes was what many historians have called one of the most compelling speeches in U.S. political history — the brother of an assassinated president announcing another traumatic assassination just two months before he would also be killed. Understanding the impulse for revenge, in which violence would beget more violence, Kennedy instead called for love, wisdom, and compassion. Continue reading »
In hermetic mysticism, V.I.T.R.I.O.L. is an acronym standing for “Visita Interiora Terrae Rectificando Invenies Occultum Lapidem” — “visit the interior of the earth, and purifying it, you will find the hidden stone”. Just as vitriol was a substance used in alchemical practice for the transmutation of metals through successive purifications, at an esoteric level it represents a similar process, one of self-destruction and regeneration that is intended to lead to a transmutation and a union with the divine. The term might also be interpreted as a way of saying “look within yourself for the truth”.
“V.I.T.R.I.O.L.” is also the title of the first of four tracks on an unusual new split album entitled Ars Regalis created by members of two esoteric Italian black metal bands, Malvento and The Magik Way (created by former members of Mortuary Drape), and we present a lyric video for the track today — preceded by a few more words of introduction that may help shed further light on what you’re about to experience. Continue reading »
The Greek black metal band Sørgelig, who share three members with another band we’ve written about before (Isolert), released their first EP in 2017 (Forever Lost) and then an excellent debut album (Apostate) this past spring. They have chosen to follow the new album with another EP, this one entitled Devoted To Nothingness, but it’s one that represents a few changes.
First, while Sørgelig‘s four-man line-up remains intact, the EP is the creation of only two of those members — vocalist Odious and multi-instrumentalist N.D. On this EP, N.D. performs guitars, drums, vocals, and bass on two tracks (and guest Konstantinos S performs bass on four others, including the one we’re presenting today).
Second, as compared to the music on Apostate (for example), this revised line-up has chosen to channel their hatred and malice toward life through a more raw and lo-fi expression of black metal — though they have not abandoned some of the key ingredients that made their debut album so seductive. Continue reading »
(This is Vonlughlio’s review of the new album by Pittsburgh-based Post Mortal Possession, which was released on November 17th by Lord of the Sick.)
This time around I was given the opportunity to do a small write-up for Post Mortal Possession‘s debut album Perpetual Descent, which was just released by Lord of the Sick Recording. This band is from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and was formed back in 2013. Prior to this debut full-length, they released two EPs, Possessing Entity back in 2014 and Forest of the Damned in 2016.
I became aware of the band’s existence when The Chicago Domination Fest 2017 lineup was announced and their name was among the ones to be found there. So, I decided to check their EPs and thought they were good — there was talent for sure — but (at least for me) nothing special. Continue reading »
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 »
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 »
(Andy Synn prepared this essay, with numerous examples of music, about the value that lyrics can contribute to the enjoyment of metal if written and delivered with conviction.)
So in lieu of another edition of Waxing Lyrical (don’t worry, the column’s not going anywhere, it’s just very dependent on the availability of the bands I talk to) I’ve decided to ask you all a very important question:
What’s more important to you, the lyrics or the music… the message or the medium? Continue reading »
It has become an annual tradition at our putrid site to launch our year-end LISTMANIA orgy with the appearance of DECIBEL mag’s Top 40 list. It has become a tradition in part because, in my humble opinion, it’s still the best print publication out there for fans of extreme metal, and in part because they always manage to jump out of the starting blocks first in the race for publishing YE “best of” lists – and they’ve done it again this year. So here we go!
The DECIBEL list will officially appear in the magazine’s January 2019 edition, which hasn’t yet hit my own mailbox, but because it’s out in the world somewhere already, DECIBEL again decided (for the third year in a row) to scoop their own list rather than letting leeches like me leak it. They published the list on-line yesterday, and so I can now again re-publish their list without too much guilt.
Of course, there will be a lot more content in the January issue (which has Deafheaven on the cover), including commentary about each of these 40 albums and why they were selected. You can order a copy of that HERE. Continue reading »