AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): RINTRAH — “THE TORRID CLIME”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Jul 312025
 

(written by Islander)

This coming Bandcamp Friday will bring the release by Fiadh Productions of the debut album from an unusual musical collaboration that has taken the name Rintrah. That album, The Torrid Clime, pays tribute to Romantic period art, poetry, and music (circa 1798-1837). It does that in part by drawing the songs’ lyrics from classical pieces by Romantic era poets, presented unaltered and unabridged. The themes include “finding the true God in nature, the sense of the primordial as channeled through the self, nostalgia for the past, and using fantasy as a tool to reshape dissatisfactions with reality”.

The participants in Rintrah include Otrebor (Botanist, ex-Lotus Thief) on drums and vocals, Arsenio Santos (Howling Sycamore) on bass, and William DuPlain (aka Cynoxylon, ex-Botanist) on lead vocals — and guitars were composed and recorded by classical musician Justin Collins.

Yesterday we published an interview with Justin about how Rintrah and the music became a reality. We’ll use parts of that interview as reference points again today, but the main subject now is the music itself, a genre-bending and time-traveling experience that you’ll now be able to enjoy in its entirety. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: RINTRAH

 Premieres  1 Response »
Jul 302025
 

(written by Islander)

Rintrah is an unusual musical collaboration whose lineup consists of Otrebor (Botanist, ex-Lotus Thief) on drums and vocals, Arsenio Santos (Howling Sycamore) on bass, William DuPlain (aka Cynoxylon, ex-Botanist) on vocals, and acoustic classical guitarist Justin Collins. They describe Rintrah as a project “that pays tribute to Romantic period art, poetry, and music (circa 1798-1837),” in part by drawing their lyrics from “classical pieces by Romantic era poets, presented unaltered and unabridged.”

Last year we premiered Rintrah‘s debut demo (here), and we also wrote about another demo track that came out later in the year (here). Those were rough versions of four songs that will appear in their final form, along with seven more songs, on Rintrah‘s debut album The Torrid Clime.

That album will be released on this coming Bandcamp Friday, August 1st, via Fiadh Productions, and pre-orders by the label and the band are starting today. Tomorrow we will premiere a full stream of the album with a review, and we’re including one of the new songs (“In Tempests”) at the end of this article.

To help pave the way to these events, I interviewed Justin Collins to delve deeper into how Rintrah came to be, and how the music was made. That discussion follows, illustrated with paintings by Caspar David Friedrich and one by Julius von Leypold (excerpts of some of these appear in the booklet accompanying the album). Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (HEADSPIN EDITION): MITOCHONDRION, AVHATH & KUNTARI, RINTRAH, THE HOLY FLESH, HIGH INQUISITOR WOE, DUKH DÄKOMPOSITA

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Oct 022024
 


Mitochondrion

(written by Islander)

With my wife out of town visiting one of her sisters and me having gotten a head-start on the premieres I’d committed to write for today, I found myself with a rare chunk of time to go musically exploring yesterday, and to prepare this rare mid-week roundup.

Entirely by coincidence, most of what I listened to was head-spinning in different ways (as you can tell by the post title). I think it’s fair to call all of the following songs unconventional, and maybe even experimental in some respects, including the ones that feature singing (and yes, some of these are “exceptions to the rule” around here).

But lest you think I’m about to load you up with many melodious things, let’s incinerate that assumption immediately. Continue reading »

AN NCS DEMO PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): RINTRAH

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, SHORT BUT SWEET  3 Responses »
Jul 012024
 

Trust me, writing about metal isn’t easy. The challenge of not using the same clichéd words over and over again in an effort to describe the music is daunting. That challenge is part of what keeps those of us at this place still engaged after so many years, i.e., we’re stubborn fools who strive to become better.

But trust me again, writing about metal in most of its kaleidoscopic shapes is a piece of cake compared to writing about the music of Rintrah, which is like a vine of many colors whose scandent twining runners have hooked into metal but whose roots and other branchings take their nourishment from far different sources of which we can claim no expertise and have little experience.

In other words, prepare for something completely different. Continue reading »