SHADES OF BLACK (PART 1): DEIPHAGO, SXUPERION, CALYX, VOËMMR

 SHADES OF BLACK  5 Responses »
Mar 102019
 

 

I didn’t lose an hour of sleep last night. I just feel less moronic because I woke up at 4:30 a.m. on a Sunday morning instead of 3:30 a.m. Thank you Daylight Savings Time.

Of course, I’ll still feel like shit when it hits me around mid-afternoon that I only got 5 1/2 hours of sleep on one of the few nights of the week when I could have gotten 8 or 9. On the other hand, being awake so early does mean that I have extra time for this Sunday column, enough extra time that I can write a two-parter before having to deal with the rest of my life. Hopefully, my moronic misery becomes your savage pleasure.

DEIPHAGO

Deiphago describe their music as “Experimental Hyper-speed Satanic Bestial Metal” — and every word of that is true. As I’ve written before, their music doesn’t sound like anything else you’re likely to find in the realms of black metal or black/death. It viciously shoves us out of our musical comfort zones; it’s likely to leave most listeners bewildered and bedazzled (or at least severely unbalanced). Continue reading »

AN NCS DEMO PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): VOËMMR — “SOMBR MOEBRD”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Aug 102018
 

 

The Portuguese black metal underground is home to a connected group of musicians (who conceal their identities) known as the Aldebaran Circle. That circle includes such bands and projects as Ordem Satânica, Trono Além Morte (whose music we premiered here), a band named Occelensbrigg whose music I included in a round-up at the end of July (here), and a band named Espírito Aldebaran, whose 2017 demo I reviewed here.

But the member of the Aldebaran Circle I discovered first was Voëmmr. They (or he?) released a debut album, Nox Maledictvs, in the fall of 2017, and we presented its streaming premiere. Now we have the good fortune to announce and premiere a new Voëmmr demo named Sombr Moebrd in advance of its release on August 15th by Harvest of Death. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): VOËMMR — “NOX MALEDICTVS”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Oct 312017
 

 

We are told that Voëmmr recorded their debut album Nox Maledictvs during two nights in an abandoned farm in the Portuguese countryside. What we are not told, but may infer from the sounds they’ve created, is that they were not alone, but instead participated in a communion with spirits of the dead, assisted by witches, warlocks, and shape-shifting, void-dwelling entities stinking of sulphur.

This is an album both bewitching and toxic, bewildering and beguiling, haunted and terrifying. It is entirely fitting that we present a full stream of the music on Samhain, that liminal time when the veil between our world and the Otherworld is tissue-thin, that old festival of darkness when black magic most easily parts the veil. The album is being released today by Harvest of Death, a division of Signal Rex, and you may listen to all of it below.  Continue reading »