Feb 042022
 

 

Today I must bring this list to an end. It’s not because I’m really finished — I have dozens more songs I’d like to add and write about. It’s because we’re now a week into February and I really ought to spend more time focusing on the songs of this year instead of yesteryear.

So, please do me a favor and hold your fire. I know I didn’t include some of the songs you’ve been waiting to see, and please don’t question how the hell I chose the ones I did include, at the cost of your own favorites, because it was anything but an organized, scientific, and well-thought-out process. I’m happy with what I chose, but easily could have chosen others.

That statement is as true of today’s final songs as all the ones that came before. I picked a few — okay, more than a few (though accompanied by fewer words and no artwork) — but in coming down to the wire I yielded even more to random impulse than probably ever before.

On Monday I’ll add a “wrap up” post that compiles everything on the list from eager beginning to anguished end, all in one place. And with that, here are the final choices, this time arranged alphabetically. Continue reading »

Oct 272021
 

 

In February 2017 Funeral Chant from Oakland, California independently released their self-titled debut, a six-track, 27-minute affair that was subsequently picked up for physical editions by Duplicate Records and Caverna Abismal Records. It was a remarkable release in more ways than one, but the dominant impression it left in our heads was summed up in these passages from our review:

“The band walk a fine line between berserker chaos and the kind of intricate instrumental inventiveness and rhythmic dynamism that produces fascination. It’s a high-wire display of acrobatics, but Funeral Chant are so nimble that they don’t lose their balance no matter how fast they’re flying along that thin cord.

“And so, the songs are crushing, eviscerating, hateful, and ferocious at a primal level, but are also intricate, well-plotted, and eerie. In the heat of the moment, they trigger an enormous adrenaline rush, but it takes multiple listens before you begin to follow all the labyrinthine exercises going on within these raging storms of sound”.

It’s thus no wonder that we leaped at the chance to premiere the band’s new album, Dawn Of Annihilation, which will be released via Carbonized Records on November 1st. Continue reading »

Nov 272017
 

 

In the early weeks of this now-waning year the Oakland-based black/death band Funeral Chant self-released their first cacophonous chants of total death on tape and digitally. It took little time for that self-titled album to produce a clamoring in the unwashed hordes of the underground for a vinyl and a CD edition, and now those wishes are about to be granted:

On November 30, Caverna Abismal Records (Portugal) and Duplicate Records (Norway) will release Funeral Chant’s enormously impressive debut in LP and CD formats, and to help spread the word we’re fiendishly pleased to present a full stream of the album for those who may have missed it before. Continue reading »