OVERFLOWING STREAMS: BAXAXAXA, BLUT AUS NORD, CELESTIAL, DECOHERENCE, FABRICANT, FORTIÐ, FREYA, HARM’S WAY, MANTAR, SKÁLMÖLD, THY CATAFALQUE

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Jul 182023
 


Baxaxaxa

Today is the 199th day of 2023. On this day in history, among many other instances of idiocy and abuse, the First Vatican Council decreed the dogma of papal infallibility and Adolf Hitler published Mein Kampf. It’s also the birthday of Nelson Mandela, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, Hunter Thompson, Vin Diesel, Geno Suarez of the Seattle Mariners, and maybe you, as well as the death-day of Caravaggio, Jane Austen, Benito Juarez, Machine Gun Kelley, and hopefully not you.

It also happens to be a rare weekday when I had time to pull together a roundup of recommended new songs and videos, which has nothing to do with commemoration of any of the preceding events. There’s so much here that I’ve throttled my usual descriptive verbosity (Satan knows there’s more than enough hot air in the atmosphere today already) and left aside some of the cover art until I can upload it later today. (Presented alphabetically by band name, which led to some interesting juxtapositions).

BAXAXAXA (Germany)

Prepare for: low-end rumbling and thrumming plus grim vibrating riffage, immense jolting chugs and ethereal gothic synths, dragging tones of agony and fanatical serrated-edge yells. The experience is menacing and morbid, feral and ferocious, infernal and infectious…. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: AZAGHAL, FORTÍÐ, GAROTA, SKÁLD, UNHOLY VAMPYRIC SLAUGHTER SECT, VIOLET COLD

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Nov 202022
 

My head is clearer today than it was yesterday morning, but this column, although not exactly short, is still shorter than I’d like due to a planned mid-morning rendezvous with friends. Because time is racing away, I’ll cut this introduction off at the knees and just forewarn you that the word of the day is “whiplash”.

AZAGHAL (Finland)

As these blasphemous and terrorizing Fiuns approach the quarter-century mark in their career they’ve readied a new album named Alttarimme on Luista Tehty (“our altar is made of bone”), and the first advance song from it is the one I’ve chosen as a beginning today. It turns out to be a multi-faceted piece of music, and one that passes almost too quickly. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: FORTÍÐ, CRO-MAGS, OBRIJ, DESTROY MY BRAINS, NARZISSUS, KAUNIS KUOLEMATON, MORPHOLITH

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Nov 282020
 

 

I don’t have any words of wisdom to offer today, other than the usual: Wear your damn masks, stay away from other people as much as possible, and stop bathing and wiping after you take a shit so that other people will stay away from you. If you must go out, play the following tracks on a boom-box so people will run away.

FORTÍР(Iceland)

To begin, here’s a video for a song called “Pandemic” because, as you can tell, the virus is on my mind (as it is on most days) — but also because the hooks in this song are potent, from the rocking and rumbling drum rhythms to the darting, gleaming, and roiling riffs. The vibrancy of the song is as contagious as the subject matter, and so is the menace that surfaces in its more frenzied episodes. Meanwhile the vocals are utterly scorching. Continue reading »