SHADES OF BLACK: A DEAD POEM, THE SUN’S JOURNEY THROUGH THE NIGHT, IRGA, GLYPH

 SHADES OF BLACK  1 Response »
May 042025
 

(written by Islander)

Today’s blackening of the sabbath will be shorter than usual. After finishing yesterday’s Seen and Heard column I did chores, then conversed for hours with a visitor to our home (a good friend from across the water in Seattle), then spent the late afternoon and evening watching a great baseball game at the local sports bar, then slept for 9 1/2 hours. And now I’ve got to leave home soon for another activity with friends.

So there’s the excuses. I know you didn’t need them. A shrink would make good money trying to diagnose why I feel the need to make them, and more money trying to figure out why I feel equally compelled to do these columns instead of fucking off like a normal un-churched person on Sunday mornings. Enjoy! Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: A DEAD POEM — “IN FORGOTTEN DIMENSIONS”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Nov 152024
 

(written by Islander)

Some people are still alive who remember a time in the early ’90s (because they witnessed it) when the now well-defined genres of extreme metal weren’t so sharply separated, when there was a commingling of styles such as gothic doom, black metal, and melodeath. Others who weren’t contemporaneous witnesses have experienced those moments by listening to such records as Paradise Lost‘s Gothic, Katatonia‘s Dance of December Souls, or Rotting Christ‘s A Dead Poem.

It is no coincidence that the Brazilian duo of Marlon Combat and Carlos Misanthropic chose A Dead Poem as the name of their band, because their aim was to grasp and revive the intertwined aesthetics of doom and black metal manifested by records such as those.

Their first efforts in that direction were captured in their Absence of Life EP self-released last year (and then released in a limited CD edition early his year by Cold Art Industry Records). That caught the attention of the eclectic Personal Records, which is now primed to release A Dead Poem‘s debut album Abstract Existence on December 13th.

Some of the songs from the album have already surfaced (and opened lots of eyes and ears), and today we’re bringing you another one, a stunner of a song named “In Forgotten Dimensions“. Continue reading »