Aug 292021
 

 

Time to blacken the christian Sabbath again, as is our want. I decided to be lazy yesterday rather than compile the usual Saturday round-up of new songs and videos, but I did devote some time to browsing blackened metal, including some music that’s been out in the world (but not in my head) for many months, and you’ll find the results below.

I would say there’s a more disturbing and depressive feel to these choices than might usually be the case. I’m not in therapy so I don’t know for sure if this is a reflection of changes in my usually sunny mood, though I wouldn’t be surprised if that were true. It might just be that the first song took me down that path, and everything else simply fell into place.

DEADSPACE (multinational)

We lamented the split-up of Deadspace when that was announced last year, but celebrated their final album, A Portrait of Sacrificial Scars, as the band’s best work of all. Happily, however, Deadspace have reunited, though I somehow overlooked that announcement, first disclosed in March, until yesterday. I also overlooked that in June the band released a video for a new song named “Moksha“. Continue reading »

Aug 042019
 

 

Writing today’s column was tougher than usual. While listening to my long list of music candidates last night and planning what I would write about, the news about the massacre in El Paso broke. And when I woke up this morning, planning to inhale coffee and begin writing, I was greeted with the reports of what happened in Dayton, Ohio overnight, when 9 more people were executed and more than two dozen were injured. Those tragedies brought the number of mass shootings in the U.S. this year to more than 250 (defined as 4 or more people shot or killed in a single incident, not including the shooter), and the number of deaths in mass shootings to 51.

I guess depression and rage are among the chief emotions channeled through black metal, but these events still didn’t put me in the best frame of mind for this project, despite being wracked by that same mixture of feelings over the last 24 hours. I do have plans for a second installment of new music in this series, but the best I can hope for is to finish it in time for posting on Monday.

UNAUSSPRECHLICHEN KULTEN

For many of us, Unaussprechlichen Kulten have become one of those bands whose every release is mandatory listening. And so it will be with respect to the fifth album from this Chilean cult, Teufelsbücher, which will be released by Iron Bonehead Productions on October 18th. Continue reading »

Dec 182016
 

gravatus-cover-art

 

I’ve managed to complete the second part of a two-part post that I began earlier today, though it’s not as complete as I had hoped. This second installment includes five full albums or EPs, all of which deserve more words of praise than I have time to give them, but once the new week begins I’ll have even less time than I do today. And so I’ve decided it’s better to make relatively brief exclamations of excitement than none at all.

In addition to those five full releases, this post includes one new advance track. It’s only barely in the usual blackened vein of this series (if at all), but I like it so much that I’ve bent the rules.

GRAVATUS

We begin with a new album named LI_E by the one-man Romanian project Gravatus, which was released on November 12. This was my first exposure to the music of Gravatus, but I’ve found myself enthralled by LI_E. Continue reading »