Sep 052022
 

In our never-ending mission to drown people in heavy music we have another roundup to start the new week. We’re doing this even though today is a national holiday here in the U.S., and the culmination of a 3-day holiday weekend. Canada also celebrates the same holiday today, the first Monday in September. Much of the rest of the world observes a similar celebration, but does it on May 1st.

The holiday is generically in honor of “workers”, but really began as a celebration of the labor movement (or “labour”, as they spell it in Canada). “Union” has become something of a dirty word in the U.S. over the last 40 years (in that time the percentage of American workers who belong to a union has fallen by half), though labor organization seems to be experiencing at least a modest resurgence in places like Starbucks shops, Amazon warehouses, and Google’s cafeterias. More power to them.

The holiday has really become just another excuse to have a 3-day weekend of sleeping, eating, drinking, and hanging out with friends. Here in the U.S., tradition also has it that you’re not supposed to wear white after Labor Day, since it unofficially marks the end of summer. But you probably don’t wash your underwear very often anyway, so you’re good. And who wears white band shirts, I mean other than Andy Synn?

Where was I?

Oh yeah… drowning visitors in heavy music. That mission goes on, ’cause we don’t observe holidays at this clinically obsessive place (as if you couldn’t tell from the three posts that preceded this one today). Continue reading »

Jul 302022
 

 

A couple of updates for you weekend visitors: First, I’ve had to rush today’s roundup, thanks to a late start on the day and way too many new songs and videos to go through in order to make these choices. Due to the rushing, I had to leave lots of good stuff on “the cutting room floor”, despite how many choices I made.

Except in the context of deadly sins and circles of Hell (the violent and bestial one), 7 is a lucky number, so I initially decided to stop there. But I couldn’t help myself, and so pushed it to 10 instead, presented alphabetically by band name.

Second, I’m going to a big party in Seattle tonight. It was originally scheduled to happen in January, but last winter’s covid surge fucked those plans. It will be very late before I get back to the NCS island headquarters, and there’s at least a 50/50 chance I’ll wake up on Sunday with a hangover, and a 100% chance that most of the morning will be gone by the time I open my red eyes. Which means we may not have a Shades of Black column tomorrow. Continue reading »

May 172018
 

 

The German black metal band Firtan will soon be adding to a discography that already includes a well-received debut album (2014’s Niedergang) and two powerful EPs (2013’s Wogen der Trauer and the band’s most recent release, 2016’s Innenwelt). On July 13th, AOP Records will release Firtan’s second album, Okeanos — a title that brings to mind the Titan god of the great world-encircling sea.

The new album includes six substantial tracks, and today it’s our pleasure to bring you the premiere of its opening song, “Seegang“. Continue reading »

Jun 092016
 

Imperium Dekadenz-Dis Manibvs

 

This is the third and final part of a post I began two days ago devoted to recent song and video streams, as well as full releases, in a blackened vein. This doesn’t exhaust what I’d like to recommend from what I’ve been listening to over the last week or so, but after this I’m going to get back to the more usual schedule of posting these Shades of Black collections on Sundays. Hope you find some things to like in what follows. In case you missed the first two parts of this post, here are links:

Part One
Part Two

IMPERIUM DEKADENZ

I first discovered this German band in the spring of 2010 and wrote a review of their then-current album Procella Vadens (which is superb), except I wrote it as if Suffocation’s Frank Mullen were writing the review. Seemed like a good idea at the time. I failed to review their next album, 2013’s Meadows of Nostalgia (also excellent), only managing to praise two songs from it. And now a third album is on the way, with the first advance track premiering yesterday at Rolling Stone (of all places). Continue reading »