SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: GOJIRA, ZADISM, ZAKAZ, ZEIT, ZMEY GORYNICH, JOROGUMO, CHRIS GEBAUER

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Nov 082025
 

(written by Islander)

Welp, I got another very late start on this Saturday. Of course, for most well-adjusted people Saturday is made for getting late starts. Not being well-adjusted, I get anxious when it happens, nervously staring at the clock and realizing I have to hurry or I won’t get roundups like this one finished in time for anyone in quadrants east of here to pay attention before sundown.

Enough of that. I should use my diminishing time to introduce the large handful of things I picked for today’s recommendations, including the semi-usual curveball at the end. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 2): DRATNA, GOD’S BASTARD, ZAKAZ, SERPENTINE APOSTLE, FUROR BREVIS

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Apr 212019
 

 

To have any hope of finishing Part 2 of today’s column I’ve had to carve off some of the releases I had intended to write about too. Painful decisions to be sure, but between Part 1 and what follows in this Part 2, there’s probably too much music for any normal person to focus on already, and too many threats to your financial solvency if you like all of it well enough to go on a spending spree.

Part 1 was devoted to advance tracks from forthcoming releases (and one new single), but this installment includes complete streams of five new EPs, which ought to be enough to thoroughly burn this Easter to the ground. (Four of them are “name your own price” at Bandcamp.)

DRATNA

In the space of little more than a year, the Northern Ireland one-man black metal band Dratna (which is its creator’s name rendered in a medieval Irish language) has released three EPs of increasing quality and coalescing focus. The first two were Clíodhna and Altar (reviewed here), and the latest is An Cath (The Battle), which was on released April 20th. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 2): GRAVATUS, APOGNOSIS, ASH AND COAL, DARK PORTRAIT, ZAKAZ, TOTENWELT

 Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHADES OF BLACK  7 Responses »
Dec 182016
 

gravatus-cover-art

 

I’ve managed to complete the second part of a two-part post that I began earlier today, though it’s not as complete as I had hoped. This second installment includes five full albums or EPs, all of which deserve more words of praise than I have time to give them, but once the new week begins I’ll have even less time than I do today. And so I’ve decided it’s better to make relatively brief exclamations of excitement than none at all.

In addition to those five full releases, this post includes one new advance track. It’s only barely in the usual blackened vein of this series (if at all), but I like it so much that I’ve bent the rules.

GRAVATUS

We begin with a new album named LI_E by the one-man Romanian project Gravatus, which was released on November 12. This was my first exposure to the music of Gravatus, but I’ve found myself enthralled by LI_E. Continue reading »