Apr 152020
 

 

We’ve all now seen examples of songs that were written and recorded long before the pandemic reared its ugly head and took our throats in its teeth, but which now seem as if they had been written yesterday. “Hypochondriac” by the British band Burden Limbs is one of those songs. Now must be a particularly miserable time to be a hypochondriac, but the music also captures the tension, the terror, and the sense of unreality that now pervades everyone’s existence, while the words convey meaning that goes beyond the afflictions of mere hypochondria.

What we’re presenting today is a disorienting and disturbing lyric video for this song, one that is well-suited to the disorienting and disturbing sensations in the music. The band’s vocalist Chad Murray explained it to us this way: Continue reading »

Aug 202019
 

 

It’s an eclectic mix of sounds that I’ve chosen for today’s round-up; an authoritative but not infallible source doesn’t consider any of them metal. As on other occasions, I’ve benefited from recommendations received from Rennie (starkweather), which are the first two bands in this selection. The first of those, Wells Valley, was already a known quantity to me, though I didn’t know they had a new album set for release. The second one (Indus) was a new discovery, as were the next two, which I learned about in other ways.

Hektik‘s new EP seemed to pair up very well with the recent Indus EP, which is why I’ve put them back-to-back in the middle. The music of Burden Limbs is a different breed of cat altogether, but I’ve found myself hooked on the song I’ve included here, and by the forthcoming EP from which it comes.

WELLS VALLEY

In June of this year Black Lion Records released a compilation CD (also available as a name-your-price Bandcamp download here) named Afterlife In Darkness I. It includes songs by 29 bands taken from past and future releases by Black Lion. I should have paid closer attention to it, because one of the five tracks from forthcoming albums on that comp is the new song (“Paragon“) by Wells Valley that I’ve picked to start today’s collection, which is also now streaming on a recently established Bandcamp page for their new album. Continue reading »