Next month Sweden’s Temple of Torturous will release the third album of Germany’s Total Negation, and to give you a hint of what lies within it, we bring you today the premiere of “Fleuchtling”.

There is no easy way to sum up this long song. It is both a lyrical and a musical narrative, one that unfolds (as the album does) very much like a story — a dark and disturbing story full of changing moods reflected in changes of pace and intensity. A mid-paced rocker at the start, it becomes brooding and eerie, with a spacious interlude pierced with twisted feedback, flickering noises, and the strumming of an acoustic guitar. As the song continues to unfold, bursts of double-bass and blast-beats join with whipping tremolo chords, rhythmic bass lines bound along beneath the reverberation of discordant guitars, and hand drums make an appearance as the song reaches its hallucinatory finale. Continue reading »