KEVINP’S ALBUMS OF THE MONTH — FEBRUARY 2016

 LISTMANIA 2016  8 Responses »
Feb 292016
 

Oranssi Pazuzu-Värähtelijä

 

(Here’s the second of KevinP’s monthly selection of releases for 2016, naming his Top 5 favorite albums released during February.)

So much for the notion that the beginning and end of the year are slow times for new releases. We have another month stacked with quality through and through. As pleasing as it is to spread the love of great releases to people far and wide, I wouldn’t mind a slight respite during a busy time of the year (I do have other obligations and hobbies). But yeah, #FirstWorldProblem. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ALTARAGE — “BATHEREX”

 Premieres  15 Responses »
Feb 032016
 

Altarage-NIHL

 

Altarage come from Bilbao in the Basque Country of Spain, a region of the country with a rich and fascinating history. Metal-Archives lists 138 active metal bands from the Basque Country, including such names as Virulency, Cerebral Effusion, Extirpation, Horn of the Rhino, The Rodeo Idiot Engine, and Knives — to name a few I know of and have written about. But I don’t know of any who sound like Altarage. And even when you leave that land far behind and lift your eyes to farther horizons, Altarage still stand out.

Their debut 7″ EP, MMXV, was released by Iron Bonehead last September, and even at only two songs long, it was an impressively powerful eye-opener. To sum up what I thought about it when I heard it last summer: “This is primitive, poisonous, electrifying music from a band that’s now squarely on my radar screen for the future.” We didn’t have to wait long for more. In just a few weeks, Iron Bonehead will be releasing the band’s debut album, NIHL, and we now have a track from the album named “Batherex” that embraces world-eating destruction with a voracious hunger. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: ALTARAGE, SELBST, ANCESTORS BLOOD, OCERCO, NABAATH

 Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  11 Responses »
Dec 262015
 

Satanic statue

 

I had no Christmas rant this year. Truthfully, I said about all I have to say on the subject five years ago. And if I were even more honest with myself, I’d admit that I’m not quite as big a humbug about the day as that post might suggest. It has its good points, to the extent that it provides an occasion for people who actually do like or love one another to get together and enjoy themselves (and I hope that happened for you).

Now that the day has been interred for another year, it’s time to return to the unearthing of new underground metal. In this collection, and in another one I have planned for tomorrow, I’ve got music to recommend in a blackened vein — not all of it black metal, but all of it pleasingly dark nonetheless.

ALTARAGE

In July I reviewed a two-song demo by a Spanish death metal band named Altarage, concluding as follows: “This is primitive, poisonous, electrifying music from a band that’s now squarely on my radar screen for the future.” They’ve now made a new appearance on the screen. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: ALTARAGE — “MMXV”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  3 Responses »
Jul 212015
 

Altarage-MMXV Demo

 

I’m devoting almost all of my posts today to a series of short releases that I discovered since the end of last week, and this is the third one of those.

ALTARAGE

Altarage are a Spanish death metal band whose debut 7″ EP, MMXV, will be released by Iron Bonehead on September 4 (and a tape release is coming from Sol y Nieve/ Sentient Ruin Records). The two songs on MMXV are “Altars” and “Vortex Pyramid”. Continue reading »

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