(written by Islander)
Welcome to another Sunday column focused (mainly) on black metal. This one goes pretty deep underground, with music from four debut releases, leavened with songs from two bands whose discography is more extensive.
I’m going to start with reviews of an album and an EP, to make sure I have time to say what I want to say about them, and then turn to a group of individual songs and videos. Continue reading »
Amorphis – photo by Sam Jamsen
(written by Islander)
This is another Saturday column in which I decided to lure people with a “big name” at the start and then eventually expose people to names they might not know but should.
I could have included an even bigger collection of prominent names, because the past week also brought new music and/or new videos from Opeth, Paradise Lost, Dark Angel, Car Bomb, and Baest, to name a few. You can find those via the hyperlinks I included. But I wanted to have more time for lesser lights. Continue reading »
(written by Islander)
Approximately 31 years ago the Seattle band Plague Bearer changed their name to Drawn and Quartered, and they’ve been living up to it ever sense. Over the course of eight albums and numerous other releases they’ve still found ways of spreading lethal musical pestilence, but ruthless death metal disembowelment and dismemberment has been their main stock in trade. (They weren’t kidding when they titled their second album Extermination Revelry.)
And now the time has come for these hell-spawned destructors (they’re actually very nice people!) to discharge a ninth album, this one named Lord of Two Horns. With fiendish pleasure, we’re helping spread the word about it today through our premiere of the album’s ferocious title track. Continue reading »
(written by Islander)
Alkemia is a new band that has emerged from Uppsala, Sweden, but the lineup is composed of metal veterans. They include three members of the long-running death metal band Sarcasm — Heval Bozarslan (vocals), Peter Laitinen (guitar), and Philip Borg (bass) — and drummer Alvaro Svanerö, who was also once a Sarcasm member.
But despite these connections, Alkemia isn’t a Sarcasm clone by any means. Instead, this new formation has delved deeply into doom. As Alkemia‘s label Chaos Records explains, the music on the band’s debut album Depulsus “balances the solemnity of traditional doom metal with the raw intensity of death-doom, forging a sound that stands apart yet pays homage to the greats.”
Identifying some of those greats, the label recommends the album “for those who seek the melancholy of My Dying Bride, the dark mysticism of Celtic Frost, the ominous grandeur of Black Sabbath, and the bleak weight of early Paradise Lost.”
Those are all very accurate reference points, as you’ll hear for yourselves through our premiere of the album track “Lamenting Serenades of Eden“. Continue reading »
(We present Comrade Aleks‘ interview of Alexey Rumyantsev from the Russian death metal band Dig Me No Grave, whose new album is set for co-release by Satanath Records and Metal Race Records on June 15th.)
It’s difficult to add something to Islander’s overview of Dig Me No Grave’s fourth album Necrocosmic Ceremony. Yet this interview was planned long ago indeed for this Russian band that performs quite old school death metal focused on Lovecraftian horror and Robert Howard’s most grim fantasies. So let’s consider it as a logical addition to the review, and I hope that Alexey Rumyantsev, as the band’s vocalist and founder, will help to dig into it deeper. Continue reading »
(This is Wil Cifer‘s review of a debut album by the Wisconsin death metal band Ossuary, which is out now on vinyl via Me Saco Un Ojo Records, and on CD and tape via Darkness Shall Rise.)
Embarking upon the path of death metal, it seems that a band is confronted with the choice, much like a video game, where they must choose a class, think Dungeons & Dragons in this regard. For this metaphor, we’ll use Mage (Morbid Angel), Fighter (Entombed), Barbarian (Cannibal Corpse), and Necromancer (Incantation).
This particular band, Ossuary, featuring members of Jex Thoth, has chosen to play as a Necromancer, with a darker sound, more atmospheric, with a mood as depressive as doom, and a great deal of sonic depth. Continue reading »
(In his review below, our Norway-based contributor Chile has some very nice things to say about the recently released fifth album by the Galician black metal band Balmog.)
Apart from being a generally well-conceived idea, black metal is also an excellently executed idea, evidenced by thousands if not tens of thousands of bands in existence. Bands coming from all four corners of the world, bringing their own cultural identities to the table and letting them shine through their music. Obviously, black metal being the subject, “shine” is maybe a bit misleading, but you get the idea.
All this makes life much easier for us reviewers, because you can pick any place on Earth, and you’ll find something interesting. Like our guests today, for example. Coming from the town of Soutomaior in the Spanish province of Galicia, Balmog is an undoubtedly interesting band, and also a very experienced one. With a career pushing on two decades, the band has been constantly releasing quality stuff and in good quantity too. Continue reading »
(Today we help announce, and premiere a video playthrough, of a new EP by the Swiss metal band Stortregn, preceded by DGR‘s review of this very interesting and hair-raising new work on the eve of its release.)
Given the length of Stortregn‘s career it is impressive that they’ve been able to keep to such a consistent clip. Even while slowly metamorphosizing into a different genre from where they started, Stortregn have been a on a strong two-to-three-year cycle of quality releases. They even managed to land one well enough with 2023’s Finitude that it wound up ranking pretty highly at this here website’s year-end celebrations. If nothing else, we were certainly ready to throw down in defense of the one-two punch of “Xeno Chaos” and “Cold Void” in the early part of the album.
Stortregn specialize in a form of compositional chaos that is tightly controlled but still just off the map enough that they pleasantly surprise. Each song is a musical showpiece on its own without devolving into instrumental demo work, and that they do this at such a high speed for the majority of their last few releases has been stunning. Without ever letting their extremity become milquetoast, Stortregn have put in a valiant effort in the tech-death world. Continue reading »
(written by Islander)
On June 6th, two days from now, Fiadh Productions will release the third album by Białywilk, the solo atmospheric black metal project of California-based but Polish-born musician Marek Cimochowicz (formerly a member of Vukari). The album’s name is Wniebowstąpienie, which is Polish for Ascension Day. Marek describes it as “a deeply personal record about getting older and finding your place in the universe,” about “aging, and being comfortable in your own skin.” On Wniebowstąpienie he is accompanied by sessions musicians Elijah Debey (drums) and Abel Jara (bass).
We’ve reviewed Białywilk‘s two preceding albums, Próżnia (here) and Zmora (here). They each had their own distinct inspirations and were musically distinct (but uncommonly distinctive) as well. They gave the sense of a very talented artist engaged in exploratory and experimental creative ventures, and so they created a sense of intrigue about what Wniebowstąpienie would bring us.
Now we know, and now you’ll know, because we’re hosting a full stream of the new album today. Continue reading »
(April of this year brought the debut EP from the Colombian death metal band T-800, and today we bring you DGR‘s review of it.)
There is an art to taking things at face value when it comes to music sometimes. All one needed to do was glance at Colombia’s newly formed death metal act T-800 and its constituent pieces to know that this would not be some big, world-changing event in music. Instead, and purely based off of how the group are constructed out of their local scenes in various other brutal death, slam, and even one tech-death and deathcore band, to know that T-800 are likely going to be about as rock stupid as it comes in death metal.
That is, of course, if you hadn’t already caught the Terminator homage in the name or song titles, or the fact that the artwork for their newest EP Antihuman goes with the classic pile of skulls, zombies, and mutilation for its overall motif. There’s not going to be anything progessive in the mission statement of Antihuman. This is death metal in a form about as thick-headed as it could come… and sometimes that is what you need. Continue reading »