AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: PLAGUEWIELDER — “BLOOD OF THE ASTRAL GATE”

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Aug 212025
 

(written by Islander)

We’ve been following the ever-evolving music of Ohio’s Plaguewielder since early days, and today we continue our watch by premiering through an eye-catching video an excellent new song, “Blood of the Astral Gate,” the lead single being digitally released today from a two-part Plaguewielder EP that’s set to unfold in early 2026.

That two-part series will be entitled Year of the Plague, to be released by a new independent label named Mourning Shroud that will become the new vehicle for their music. As Plaguewielder portray what’s coming through the EPs, “the band descends further into the spiral of post-black metal, where anguish becomes ritual and melody bleeds into shadow. These offerings are steeped in decay, adorned with haunted hymns and the weight of forgotten aeons.”

With respect to the new song you’re about to hear, Plaguewielder have provided this statement: Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: PLAGUEWIELDER, FROSTNATT, SAMIARUS, SCHATTENFALL

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Jan 122025
 

(written by Islander)

Here we are again in the very early part of another new year. In these dawning new days with a long stretch of more days looming ahead I’ve thought about why I continue toiling away on this blog after so many years despite the mental pressures and time demands it imposes. I think there are two main reasons.

The first is a continuing fascination with the music we cover and how it has changed and continues to change. If all the numerous sub-genres had stagnated, boredom would have set in. Repeatedly listening to newer generations of musicians doing basically the same thing as older generations might not have been completely fruitless, but I doubt I would have wanted to keep writing about it.

The second reason is the challenge of the writing, the challenge of not saying the same kinds of things over and over again. Repeating the same methods of describing audio sensations would also have become boring. Falling into a rut and not trying to get out would have been easy; trying to do better is frustrating, a mission of only incremental gains beset by recurring feelings of failure and backsliding. But so far, that mission has seemed a better alternative than just giving up.

These thoughts have been on my mind today because I decided to devote this Sunday’s column mainly to a small group of complete releases. Writing about entire albums or EPs is harder for me than introducing individual songs — a bigger challenge. And on the other hand, I thought the records I chose represent, in different ways, a resistance to stagnation. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: BØNES, FUMES, KRIEG, WITHDRAWAL, LYCOPOLIS, NECRODEATH, PILLAR AMONGST WILLOWS, PLAGUEWIELDER, TER ZIELE

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Dec 082024
 

I had time to pull together a large collection of music for this usual Sunday post, but not enough time to pull together the usual long-winded introduction. So we’ll just have to get right to it (please, stop applauding).

As I did in yesterday’s roundup, I organized the choices in alphabetical order by band name. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): PLAGUEWIELDER — “BURNING DEATH”

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Jun 152023
 

We’ve closely followed the releases of Ohio’s Plaguewielder almost from the band’s inception, not only for the obvious reason that we’ve found the music consistently compelling but also because the progression from one release to the next has never been entirely predictable.

To be sure, dark shadows have consistently swathed the music, and it has been continuously fueled by harrowing emotional intensity. As we observed in reviewing their most recent album, the remarkable Covenant Death, “feelings of hopelessness, frustration, and fury have always seem to be fighting to get out into the songs”.

But, especially as revealed on that latest album, the band’s stylistic ingredients have become increasingly multi-faceted. That album was still music as catharsis, as Plaguewielder‘s music always has been, but the range of musical influences expanded outward in captivating ways.

We’ve learned that Plaguewielder are at work on their next album, which will have the evocative title In Dust and Ash, and we will again be eager (and intrigued) to hear it. But in the meantime Plaguewielder are bridging the gap between full-lengths with a new EP named Burning Death (set for release tomorrow via Jeff Wilson‘s disorder-recordings), and once again it holds surprises. Continue reading »

WAXING LYRICAL: PLAGUEWIELDER

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Jul 032021
 

(In this new edition of Andy Synn‘s interview series devoted to lyrics in metal, he got input from Bryce Seditz of the Ohio band Plaguewielder.)

We – and that’s the collective we, not the royal we – have been big fans and followers of Ohio Blackened Sludge-bringers Plaguewielder for quite some time now.

You may even recall that we were lucky enough to host the premiere of their latest (and greatest) album, Covenant Death, back in March – and I can confidently say that it’s still one of my favourite albums of the year so far.

So, for this particular edition of Waxing Lyrical I/we thought it was high time we caught up with Plaguewielder vocalist/guitarist Bryce Seditz to find out exactly what it is that fuels the band’s thematic fire. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): PLAGUEWIELDER — “COVENANT DEATH”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  1 Response »
Mar 312021
 

 

We’ve been following the progress of Ohio’s Plaguewielder since discovering their 2017 single “Writhing in Mental Torment” almost exactly four years ago — a single that was the first release after their 2015 debut album Succumb to the Ash. The name of that single captured a through-line that continued emerging in the band’s music in the following years, feelings of hopelessness, frustration, and fury that always seemed to be fighting to get out into the songs — music as catharsis.

But the music itself has changed over the years, as Plaguewielder has found increasingly multi-faceted and expansive means of expression. In its creative evolution Plaguewielder has reached an apotheosis in Covenant Death, the album that we’re proud to premiere in full today. Undeniably the band’s best work yet, it’s also one of the most striking and memorable works yet to emerge in this still young and still wretched second year of the plague. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: PLAGUEWIELDER — “SUFFERING FROM SELF-INFLICTED WOUNDS”

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Jun 252019
 

 

It’s unlikely that you’re unfamiliar with Plaguewielder if you’ve been a frequent visitor at our putrid site, because we’ve paid a lot of attention to them over the course of a career that now includes two albums, including 2018’s excellent Surrender To the Void (reviewed here). They describe themselves as “a three-piece blackened sludge outfit from a decrepit mill town in Ohio”, an extreme metal power trio “embodying the misery of our times and the determination of Ohio’s forgotten working class”.

The band have a multitude of influences that come through in their viscerally powerful music, and they’ve now completed work on a new EP that both pays tribute to some of them and gives their fans a hard strike of vicious new material. Entitled Suffering From Self-Inflected Wounds, it includes covers of G.G. Allen‘s punk anthem “Bite It You Scum,” as well as working-class blues legend Leadbelly’s “Where Did You Sleep Last Night”, plus three original songs. Today we’re presenting one of those original compositions, and it’s the new EP’s raging title track. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY (PART 2): HEILUNG, LOCISTELLAR, MORDAVIA, PLAGUEWIELDER

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Jun 082019
 

 

I managed to get Part 2 of this Saturday round-up finished in time to actually post it on Saturday, leaving the field wide open tomorrow for a SHADES OF BLACK column, which also might be a two-parter, and a Sunday premiere. The five songs I chose for Part 1 were consistently high-energy, full-throttle attacks, but the songs I’ve selected for this second installment are much more variable. There is also (gasp!) a healthy helping of clean or almost-clean singing to be found here, but I think you’ll find that it earns the exceptions to our Rule.

HEILUNG

I thought for sure I had written about Heilung before today, but can find no evidence of it. I know that I meant to, because I have been fascinated by their past music. But if this is the first occasion, it’s a worthy one, because their new song “Traust” is simply fantastic. Continue reading »

PLAGUEWIELDER: “SURRENDER TO THE VOID”

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Aug 152018
 

 

By Plaguewielder’s own description, they’re “a three piece blackened sludge outfit from a decrepit mill town in Ohio”. As you might guess from that choice of words, the music on their new album Surrender To the Void is capable of descending to oppressive levels of torment and hopelessness, riddled with pain and a sense of bleak, hollow-eyed resignation. But that’s not all their music is about. It’s also fiery and fierce, with a bare-knuckled and bruising defiance in its sounds that’s capable of getting your heart racing and your head moving hard. And that still doesn’t exhaust where they take their songs, because there’s also something mystical about them, with strains of otherworldly melody that suggest visions beyond crumbling masonry, rusting equipment, and broken lives.

Plaguewielder’s success in creating such changing moods and musical textures in these seven tempo-dynamic, powerfully evocative tracks makes the album well worth hearing, and it’s one that does a great job keeping a tight grip on your attention throughout its running time. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: PLAGUEWIELDER, AWAKENING SUN, HADAL MAW, ÆVANGELIST

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Jul 182018
 

 

Here are four songs, two of which come with videos, from forthcoming albums that I’m pretty excited about. A slew of other songs have appeared since late last week that I’m also excited about, and no doubt more will appear today. The thorny garden of metal is riotously fecund. We poor harvesters with bleeding fingers and bleeding ears can’t keep up, try as we might.

PLAGUEWIELDER

Ohio’s Plaguewielder made an eye-opening debut with their 2015 album Succumb To Ash on Dullest Records. They followed that last year with a single named “Writhing In Mental Torment“, which I had some positive things to say about, and just a few days ago they released another new single, “In Depths of Cold Hell“, which is a prelude to a new album entitled Surrender To the Void that will be released on August 12th. Continue reading »

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