October Tide Archives - NO CLEAN SINGING

OCTOBER TIDE: “IN SPLENDOR BELOW”

May 222019

(DGR reviews the new album by the Swedish band October Tide, which was released on May 17th by Agonia Records.)

In Splendor Below is a very different album from its predecessors. Since reforming and releasing A Thin Shell in 2010, October Tide have kept to a pretty steady release schedule of every three years, with the most recent album prior being 2016’s Winged Waltz. Since that time the group have added two of the gentlemen from Letters From The Colony in their midst, picking up the rhythm section while the Norrman brothers stay on guitar and vocalist Alexander Högbom sticks around to deliver the deep-throated and anguished yells that have become a staple of the band since his first appearance on Tunnel Of No Light.

While there is a definite sense of lineup familiarity in place, the death metal atmospherics and groove that have worked their way into the group’s sound between the release of Winged Waltz and now are certainly new. Guitarist Fredrick Norrman was quoted in the press release for thier Our Famine lyric video describing the album as “a bit more aggressive, a bit more death metal, and with an overall colder feeling than previous records.” And that feeling makes itself apparent immediately. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: OCTOBER TIDE, NOCTURNUS AD, MUTILATE, THE CORONA LANTERN, ATARAXIE, EVEN VAST, PLAGUE WEAVER

Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 2 Responses »

Mar 242019

Yes, I know it’s Sunday, but I did listen to all the selections in this round-up on Saturday. I just didn’t get this post finished in time to launch it yesterday.

I listened to a lot of other things yesterday, too. Some of that will find its way into the usual SHADES OF BLACK column later today. Other songs and videos were also interesting, but I had to draw the line somewhere. Drawing lines gives me a headache, especially because I know that Monday will begin another week filled with new songs and videos on top of those from last week that I failed to get to, and another week when my day job (again) probably won’t leave me enough time for round-ups.

Doom plays a role in all of the following songs, which factored into my line-drawing, but the sounds of suffering play quite different roles from song to song.

OCTOBER TIDE

In their 25th year October Tide are releasing a new album, which founding guitarist Fredrik Norrman describes as “a bit more aggressive, a bit more death metal, and with an overall colder feeling than previous records”. His brother, guitarist Mattias, is still in harness, as is vocalist Alexander Högbom, but since the band’s last album they’ve added a new bassist (Johan Jönsegård) and a new drummer (Jonas Sköld), both of whom are also members of Letters From the Colony (who seem to have a lot of Meshuggah in their DNA, at least based on this live video from last summer). Continue reading »

LISTMANIA: THE TOP 10 SONGS I HEARD FOR THE FIRST TIME YESTERDAY

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 20 Responses »

Dec 222016

This time of year there are always a few people who ask whether I’m going to post my own list of the year’s best releases. Again, the answer is no, because making the effort would be too paralyzing. I have enough trouble deciding whether to wash my underoos or let them ferment for another week.

On the other hand, I do kind of feel left out of the year-end LISTMANIA frenzy, so I thought I’d put together a Top 10 list, but one that’s a bit easier for my overtaxed brain to process. These are the 10 best songs I heard for the first time yesterday.

Hey, don’t laugh! It wasn’t that easy — I listened to more than 20 new songs yesterday, so I did have to make some decisions. Of course, I couldn’t be bothered to rank these 10 tracks; there’s a limit to how far I’m going with this.

SHAARIMOTH

The first song is “Faceless Queen of Bloodstained Dreams”, which is from an album I’ve been anxiously awaiting — the second full-length by Norway’s Shaarimoth, which is arriving more than a decade after the first one. Continue reading »

REVIEWS: NOVEMBRE (“URSA”) AND OCTOBER TIDE (“WINGED WALTZ”)

Reviews 2 Responses »

May 172016

(DGR brings us a dual review of two gloomy albums released in April, by Italy’s Novembre and Sweden’s October Tide.)

The month of April has proven to be rather interesting if you are a fan of a very specific, European-flavored branch of melancholic doom metal. Sometimes referred to as melo-doom — for lack of a better short-term genre-naming — and other times described as being ethereal, this branch has seen something of an explosion in recent years. One of the results has been the re-formation of quite a few acts, and April has brought us releases by two of them, one that has effectively been re-formed for some time and one that is returning after a nine-year hiatus.

Coincidentally, both groups also happen to be named after months themselves, with Novembre releasing their come-back album Ursa on April 1st and October Tide released their third post-revival album, Winged Waltz, on April 22nd. Long story short: If you happen to inhabit the incredibly weird niche of being a fan of the prettier side of doom and also a huge fan of months and stupid coincidences, holy shit was April the month for you. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: ASHCLOUD, BABYMETAL, BAT, THE BODY AND FULL OF HELL, DARKEND, DEVILDRIVER, ENTROPIA, FALLUJAH, GLORIA MORTI, HAIL OF BULLETS, MANTAR, MODOK, MOONSORROW, OCTOBER TIDE, PURGATORY, VICTIMS

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 8 Responses »

Mar 192016

Last week was another one in which I noticed lots of new songs and videos but didn’t have time to round them up, in part because I was writing about a flood of new songs that we were premiering ourselves. So now I’m doing what I failed to do earlier — but because I waited, the round-up has become jumbo-sized. Consequently, I’ve kept my introductions to the music brief and haven’t taken the time to consistently add album art or links as I usually do. When I did something like this last weekend (except with even fewer words), I said I didn’t intend to make a habit of it. I still don’t.

For those who pay attention to such things, I also failed to post Part 3 of the Shades of Black series I began at the start of the week. But I will do that tomorrow. Now, presented in alphabetical order, here are new songs and videos from 17 bands.

ASHCLOUD

On May 1, Xtreem Music will release the new album by Sweden’s Ashcloud. The album’s title tells you a lot of what you need to know about the music: Children of the Chainsaw. Here’s the title track — smoking, tree-felling, crusty Swedish death metal that’s awfully damned sweet. Continue reading »

VIDEOGRAPHY: OCTOBER TIDE, AMORPHIS, REBAELLIUN, VAMPILLIA, DEATHKINGS

Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 5 Responses »

Feb 292016

It looks like it’s going to be yet another one of those crazy weeks where if we snooze for about 5 minutes we’ll miss the debut of at least 5 new things worth getting excited about. For example, everything in this post appeared in just the last few hours of this Monday morning, except the penultimate one, which erupted like a volcano of dementia last night.

These are all videos. Because I really hadn’t planned on trying to inject a round-up into an already full schedule of posts at our site this morning, I don’t have time to write much about them. Of course, I do recommend you give them your time.

OCTOBER TIDE

Winged Waltz is the name of the fifth album by these beautifully gloomy Swedes, and it will be released by Agonia Records on April 22. Here is the brand new lyric video for the first advance track from the album — “Sleepless Sun”: Continue reading »

MAJALIS: “CATHODIC BLACK”

Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET 5 Responses »

Jul 262013

Majalis is one of those “after work” side-projects whose debut release leaves such a powerful impression that one can only hope, fervently, that it continues. It began years ago as a songwriting collaboration between two of In Mourning’s guitarists, Tobias Netzell (ex-October Tide) and Björn Pettersson. Eventually, they enlisted vocalist/bassist Daniel Jansson and drummer Jonas Martinsson and recorded Cathodic Black, an EP released earlier this month by Pulverised Records. And together, they’ve created something wonderful.

If you’re familiar with In Mourning, you know that Netzell and Pettersson are experienced in dropping the weight of oceans upon listeners while interweaving melodies that have a way of sticking fast in the memory. They do something similar in the three long songs that make up Cathodic Black, but have stepped outside the realm of dark melodic death metal to do it. This time they’ve moved into the territories of post rock, sludge, and doom.

The weight of the mid-paced music comes via massive, fuzzed-out, doom-drenched riffs and a drum-and-bass duo that can really bring the heavy lumber when they put their minds to it. But the music is also a study in contrasts, and the power and intensity of the passages when Majalis starts to crush is magnified by the softer measures that often precede them — the beautifully somber piano piece that begins the EP, the isolated guitar strumming and echoing percussive sounds within “Rusting Sun”, the contemplative guitar duet in the middle of “Tooth and Bone”, and other similar moments when the band dial back the intensity. Continue reading »

OCTOBER TIDE: “TUNNEL OF NO LIGHT”

Album Reviews 6 Responses »

Apr 292013

(In this post DGR reviews the new album by Sweden’s October Tide, which is out now via Pulverised Records and available on Bandcamp.)

October Tide can’t seem to catch a break, can they? Even after pulling off the miraculous feat of resurrecting the band and releasing a pretty good comeback disc, they still wind up losing two members in vocalist Tobias Netzell and bassist Pierre Stam. Granted, those two eventually went on to release In Mourning’s The Weight Of Oceans (which was my overall album of the year last year), so all was not lost, but it was a little bit worrying that we might never hear October Tide’s brand of funeral doom again. However, the band pulled off wrangling in two new musicians and now October Tide have returned again – never to be discouraged by their issues with lineup shifts – to release Tunnel Of No Light, a much darker, more melancholic take than its predecessor A Thin Shell.

The moodiness that this album conveys seeps its way into everything, including the artwork – which is probably one of the best representations of the listening experiences of both the group’s most recent discs. Whereas A Thin Shell seemed to find a frail beauty in its depression, Tunnel Of No Light is what happens when more hopeful things that may have been hinted at previously don’t work out. It is a disc so bludgeoning and overbearing in its sadness and gloom that by the end of the album the listener almost feels like the husk portrayed on its cover. Continue reading »

NEW SONGS FROM HYPOCRISY, OCTOBER TIDE, AND VREID

Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 6 Responses »

Jan 252013

Thanks to tips from DGR, I learned about two attention-grabbing developments this morning — new details about the forthcoming albums by Sweden’s Hypocrisy and October Tide plus new songs from each of them. And then on my very own I found a new single from the next album by Norway’s Vreid. It is a good day to be alive.

HYPOCRISY

Here’s how I progressed toward the new Hypocrisy song: First, I saw the cover art for the new album, End of Disclosure, which was created by Wes Benscoter (Slayer, Kreator, Nile, Vader, and more). I found it pleasing. Kind of a Zen demon. Also, many skulls. Second, I read, and was intrigued by, this quote by Hyporcisy’s main man Peter Tägtgren in the Nuclear Blast write-up on the album:

“This time I wanted to go back to basic, felt like we lost it for the last couple of albums , it’s straight to the point, it’s more Hypocrisy than ever, the fast, the heavy, the epic.. Enjoy!”

And then I listened to an edited version of the album’s title track, “End of Disclosure” — which you are about to hear, too, and which is available for free download. Continue reading »