The children must be fed… and then dismembered…
The adults must be fed, too… and transformed… Continue reading »
May 072018
May 072018
Our own introduction to the sonic ravages of the Swedish band Pissboiler came last fall, when we premiered a relentlessly oppressive, disturbingly trance-inducing track named “Cutters” from the band’s debut album, In the Lair of Lucid Nightmares, which was later released by Third I Rex. That unsparingly hopeless experience led us down into the full black depths of that album, but also back to the 26-minute side of Pissboiler’s split release with Develkuth from earlier in 2017, a track aptly named “Monolith of Depression”. And now we’re coming full circle.
In July, a new Pissboiler record will become available through the combined efforts of Third I Rex (UK), Weird Truth Productions (Japan), and Dying Sun Records (Netherlands). The name of this new EP, Att Med Kniv Ta En Kristens Liv, can be rendered in English as “To Take The Life Of A Christian With A Knife”.
Musically, the first three tracks chronicle an actual murder in which an old couple were stabbed to death in their beds, but not before the woman woke up and called 911. Samples used in the music come from the horrifying recording of her call, and the tracks move from the moment before (“En visa för elden”) to the murder itself (“Att Med Kniv Ta En Kristens Liv”), to the burning of the corpses (“Pt II – Ett avslut”).
But the new EP includes a fourth track after these, a re-mixed and re-mastered version of that previously released opus, “Monolith of Depression” — and that’s what we’re bringing you today, just to whet your morbid appetites for those three new songs. Continue reading »
May 072018
The death metal of Sadistik Forest is a destructive art, a morbidly majestic revery on a life characterized by decades of torment, and then death — zero progress lies behind, the hour of dread approaches, and then the maelstrom opens, the monsters of death come slavering forth from a place where the bones of a giant lie waiting for you to join them.
And in case you haven’t figured it out, all the song titles on the band’s new album, Morbid Majesties, were stitched together into that opening sentence in a way that suggests a narrative, but also conveys some of the moods in this band’s potent attack on the senses. What that sentence doesn’t adequately convey, however, is how tremendously vibrant the music is, and how well-crafted the songs are to achieve an immediate visceral impact while also digging their hooks into the listener’s head. We’ve got a prime example of this in the song we’re premiering today: “Zero Progress“. Continue reading »
May 072018
Photo by Per Ole Hagen
(One of our Norway-based contributors, Karina Noctum, conducted the following interview with members of the Swedish black metal band Mephorash at this year’s Inferno Festival. The band are at work on a highly anticipated new album, which follows 2015’s 1557 – Rites of Nullification.)
Karina: You have released a single that belongs to your fourth upcoming album. Have you finished it or are you producing it?
Mishbar Bovmeph: We are almost finished. We are working wrapping the whole album up and hopefully we will release it towards autumn this year. Continue reading »
May 062018
There’s a lot of new music in this week’s SHADES OF BLACK, which I suppose isn’t all that unusual. Unfortunately, there’s not a lot of time for me to write about it, in part because of time spent on a rare Sunday premiere (which also comes from black subterranean realms) and in part because I have other plans for today that will separate me from the computer; I hope I don’t experience unpleasant withdrawal symptoms.
I’ll begin with streams of two fantastic new albums and follow those with four individual songs from forthcoming releases, one of which is paired with an outstanding video.
URFAUST
Maybe it’s not too soon to proclaim the emergence of a trend. Like an unusually high number of other occurrences this year, the august Dutch band Urfaust launched their new (fifth) album with no warning, no advance promotion, no opportunities for scurrilous scribblers to review it before release. This happened on Friday, and although I’ve only managed to listen to The Constellatory Practice once since then, my impulse is to proclaim it a triumph. Continue reading »
May 062018
“The Lion’s Face” is one of four tracks on Gallow’s Destiny, the new EP by the French black/death metal band Absolvtion, whose debut was the Obscure Catharsis demo in 2016. Gallow’s Destiny will be released on July 31st by Atavism Records, and “The Lion’s Face” is the first sign of the terrors that Absolvtion have created in this new work.
The music here pulls the listener headlong into an alien nightmare, choking with the aroma of pestilence and dazzled by visions of shape-shifting archfiends. Both cruelly oppressive and irresistibly innervating, the song becomes an eye-opening herald to Absolvtion’s rising power within the globe-spanning realms of the black/death underground. Continue reading »
May 052018
(The world hasn’t ended… another Saturday rises… and with it another of Andy Synn’s WAXING LYRICAL columns… with the insights provided today by Chris Grigg of the NY black metal band Woe.)
This is the third edition of Waxing Lyrical focussing on a band I handpicked for last year’s “Critical Top Ten” which… probably says something important. Though I’m not sure what. Maybe that great albums deserve great lyrics? Something like that?
Either way, Hope Attrition was a fantastic album “…as densely packed with clever ideas, razor-sharp hooks, and raw passion, as anything I’ve heard…” and Woe are a fantastic band, which is why I harassed and harangued the band’s vocalist/guitarist Chris Grigg into telling me a little about his background, his process, and his methods. Continue reading »
May 042018
“Post Glacial Rebound is a deep black space.. our inner space.. made of memories, emotions, pain, and joy, where we have found comfort and refuge. We hope you can feel the same.” So say the Italian trio Demetra Sine Die about their new third album, which will be released next month by Third I Rex, a UK label that has proven to have very interesting and eclectic tastes and no rigid genre constraints. Based on the song we’re presenting today from Post Glacial Rebound, the same may be said of Demetra Sine Die’s latest work.
This is the band’s third album, and Third I Rex tells us that it “marks a further development and deeper move into psychedelic, post-fueled, sludge-driven hallucinations,” and also includes “blackened/death overtures and krautrock elements”. Those words certainly fed my own sense of intrigue about Post Glacial Rebound, as I hope they do yours, and the song you’re about to hear — “Lament” — should feed it even more. Continue reading »
May 042018
(Yesterday we posted Grant Skelton’s very interesting review of the unusual debut album by Death. Void. Terror. (brought forth last month by Iron Bonehead Productions), and today we’re following that with his e-mail interview of this mysterious entity, which is also… interesting.)
How was Death. Void. Terror. conceived? Whether musical or otherwise, what are some of the inspirations behind the music?
Death. Void. Terror. is an entity conceived for a single purpose: to serve as a vessel for the Great Monolith, a true sole true finality that we as practitioners are subservient to. There are no other inspirations, musical or otherwise. When I say we are vessels for the Great Monolith, I mean that we convey what is bestowed upon us by it and express this unconsciously through our recordings. Continue reading »
May 042018
(Here are brief reviews by TheMadIsraeli of three 2018 black metal albums that have caught his ear.)
I’ve been busy with life, but it doesn’t mean my metal consumption has slowed down. Let’s talk about some killer black metal that’s come out this year thus far. While the number of great black metal albums this year has been smaller than in 2017 in my mind, what has come around is top-tier and I’ve picked a pretty diverse selection of three very good records.
INFESTUM
Infestum are long-running, but for those still unaware, this Belarusian band play a style of riffy, technical, tight, and concise black metal in the vein of say, Keep Of Kalessin or Old Man’s Child, with a hint of Vader. Les Rites De Passage is a fantastic record with some diverse song-writing thanks to a very Khonsu-esque sense of industrial inclusions. The riffs of Infestum are top-notch, with a pristine sense of phrasing and drama combined with a very esoteric style of melody that I quite enjoy and vocals that definitely will bring ex-KOK vocalist Thebon to mind. Continue reading »