SHADES OF BLACK (PART II): PURE WRATH, IN APHELION, HELL MILITIA, SEPULCHRAL, OLDE THRONE, HELTEKVAD, FUNESTUS

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Jan 242022
 

 

I hope you saw Part I of this column yesterday, because in my humble opinion it includes a lot of great charred music. The same is true of this second Part, even though it doesn’t involve quite as many musical twists and turns as the first one.

PURE WRATH (Indonesia)

This Indonesian black metal project has been a favorite of mine since discovering the first advance track from its debut album Ascetic Eventide back in 2016. Since then the band has moved from a local label (Hitam Kelam Records) to Pest Productions (for the second album) and then to Debemur Morti Productions, which released the 2020 EP The Forlorn Soldier and will soon release the band’s third album Hymn to the Woeful Hearts (which includes drumming by ex-White Ward drummer Yurii Kononov).

The second single from the new album, “Presages From A Restless Soul“, came out last week. I’d like to share the inspiration for the song as described by the band’s mastermind Januaryo Hardy: Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: MEDICO PESTE, TOD HUETET UEBEL, OSSAERT, BEAST OF REVELATION, STARVING FOR DEATH, FUNESTUS

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Jan 142020
 

 

Apologies for not posting a SHADES OF BLACK on Sunday, where it belongs. For reasons related to my day job I had to go to Texas for a long weekend, and spent a big part Sunday getting back to Seattle. While in Texas I had time to pick what I wanted to write about, but not enough time to do the writing. And then Sunday night my home lost power and internet access due to a snowfall, with the problems lasting well into mid-day on Monday, so that trashed my plans to post this yesterday.

In the meantime, of course, a lot more black metal has surfaced, and I decided to include just one of those new songs along with the ones I originally picked for Sunday.

MEDICO PESTE

“God Knows Why” is the one new song I decided to add. It debuted today along with a fascinating but NSFW video. The song is off the new album by the Polish black metal band Medico Peste, whose music is also fascinating and not safe for work, or for just about anyplace else. Continue reading »